


Fortune Favors The Bold

by swordnspell



Series: Elf Notes [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game)
Genre: Alcohol, Explicit Language, F/M, Gen, Homebrew Content, Loss of Limbs, Racism Against Drow, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-24
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:33:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 35
Words: 54,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22880335
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swordnspell/pseuds/swordnspell
Summary: The Golden Bay is the Heartlands' premier vacation destination. The city is flourishing, and it's all thanks to the casino. However, after an odd assortment of travelers are wrongfully tossed into prison and have to break free before they're sentenced to death, they trace the corruption back to the casino's proprietor and the Bay's long-buried ties to piracy. Can they solve the mystery and escape the city in the face of a looming pirate invasion?
Relationships: Original D&D Character(s)/Original D&D Character(s)
Series: Elf Notes [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1644679
Kudos: 2





	1. Prologue: Arrival

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, thank you for clicking on my humble story.
> 
> Second of all, if you have read this story or something like it before, that's because I kept my original character journal online when this campaign happened back in 2018 and shared it places like Twitter and Reddit. I will also be updating Fortune Favors The Bold on my site while I update it here.
> 
> There's a few reasons I chose to "reboot" the original Golden Bay campaign journal, but ultimately it comes down to the fact that this campaign happened during a very low period in my life. Having these players and this story to support me saved my life, encouraged me to be creative again, and gave me the motivation I needed to seek professional help. I am still in recovery, which has its ups and downs, but with the beginning of Fortune Favors The Bold, I'm excited to bring in something new.

> _"Charges include failing to register business with city officials and tax evasion. Suspect is a moon elf, shorter than average, long silver hair, pale skin with a blue tint. Often seen wearing a long purple coat with a hood. Guards are encouraged to confiscate her rapier, spell book, and crystal earring upon arrest. Name: Piscín Bán.” ___
> 
> __— From the records of the Golden Bay’s law enforcement headquarters_ _

_  
___  


__

__The day I got arrested started like any other._ _

__I arrived in the Golden Bay a few moons ago. Everyone up and down the main roads of the Heartland couldn’t stop talking about it. The Golden Bay is a relatively new city, and its biggest draw swiftly became the bustling casino at its heart. The promise of riches and night life drew travelers and merchants to the coast. Business was booming._ _

__To me the city seemed a promising distraction from feelings I’d been ignoring — the inevitable heartbreak punctuating the end of a whirlwind romance. I’d moped enough, written a few poems, and wanted to be done with the ordeal._ _

__When I climbed over the crest of the last hill, the city spread before me. The Golden Bay’s borders are above sea level, but the city itself slopes down to the ocean. Rocky cliffs and caves surround the Bay’s broad, sandy beach._ _

__The day I arrived, sun glinted off the water and cast a glow over the city. I saw the vivid colors of merchant carts and vendor stalls, the many sails of trade ships down by the docks, and the larger houses of wealthier residents dotting the cliff side. But in the midst of it all, there was the Smiling Lady. The casino’s elegant spires and shimmering windows evoked the look of a cathedral._ _

__Excitement stirred in me. I broke out in a smile as I made my way towards the front gate. Surrounded on all sides by other travelers, I felt anything could happen._ _

__The moon passed through its phases, waxing and waning. During my stay, I learned the proprietor of the casino all but ran the city with his coin purse. Rather than take my chances with the “House,” as the locals called the Smiling Lady, I turned my sights to the streets of the Bazaar._ _

__In other cities I’d had success exchanging my knowledge of the arcane for spare coin. In the Golden Bay, my cards mysteriously turned up the same pattern for every three-card reading: the upright Queen of Wands and the reversed Queen of Cups, separated in the middle by the Wheel of Fortune. Unable to decipher the message, I put my deck away and relied on my astrological readings for quick gold._ _

__I spent the morning of that fateful day doing the usual, waking up early to practice swordplay and peruse my spell book, before heading to my usual spot in the Bazaar. But apparently the wrong words had found the right ear. I was confronted at my table by city guards and charged with failing to register my business with city officials._ _

__Surrounded by the rag-tag traveling smugglers in the Bazaar, the first response to fall out of my mouth was, “Bullshit.” They didn’t appreciate that much._ _

__I realized the guards’ intentions when they didn’t interrogate me or schedule a trial. I was dragged and thrown into a cell without so much as a question. The jail was dark, but its rafters and pillars crafted from wood, while the individual cells and walls were wood and iron. A quick look around the jail told me that, with only seven jail cells in such a massive city, the city dealt with its enemies quickly._ _

__They planned to kill me._ _


	2. Day 1, Part 1: Jail Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eight people find themselves in prison. Without knowing why the others have been incarcerated, they must work together to escape before meeting their end at the executioner's hand.

The guards confiscated all my belongings, including my focus and my spell book. I was defenseless save for the Ring of Mind-Shielding on my left hand.

I turned my attention to the gnome in the cell with me. She was fair and plump, with a thick head of wild black hair. Unconcerned despite the circumstances, she was somehow still in possession of several mechanical parts and tools. My entrance didn’t faze her.

“How—”

“Shh,” She said, gesturing towards the guards posted outside the door without looking up. “I’m concentrating.”

I wondered if the gnome had an escape plan, then turned my attention to the other prisoners.

The seven cells in the jail house were arranged like this: my and the gnome’s cell was one of two jail cells on our side of the room. There were two identical cells across from us. Three jail cells lined the wall to my far right.

Directly across from me was a red tiefling woman with a cell to herself. Most notably she possessed black antlers in place of more common horns, and one eye was obscured with an eye patch. The cell to the tiefling’s left contained a lone Warforged, a metal construct shaped to resemble a human and given life with magic.

The cell perpendicular to him held the strangest man I’ve ever seen.

He was the only prisoner chained to the wall. Curiously, the silver chain holding one of his wrists to the wall was dainty, easily broken — and yet, it held him. At first glance the man appeared human, but the longer I looked he became more unsettling. When he smiled, which he did often, his too-wide lips revealed rows of spiny teeth, and his skin and hair were waterlogged and dripping. There was an empty, fish-like quality to his eyes.

The cell directly next to the fish-like man was flooded, the stone deeply gouged in several places.

The next cell contained our equipment. Eyeing the distance between my cell and the temporary storage space, I realized I had one small spell on hand that could get me there. I stored that strategy in my mind for a better moment.

I heard the movement of another prisoner in the last cell — the one to the right of mine — but had no direct line of sight.

Most of us remained quiet as we waited, but the fish-like man wasted no time before bargaining. “If one of you ... could slip me a weapon...” he drawled between strange pauses, “We could ... leave.”

Each time he whispered of escape, the guards posted at our cells would scold us and bang their lances against the bars. The stranger continued to speak to us regardless.

Down the corridor, I heard the entrance to the jail house open and slam. This was followed immediately by the sound of a high voice complaining loudly at record-breaking speeds. “—Absolutely ridiculous. How dare you manhandle a lady? Wait until my family hears all about this. They’ll cut your heads off. You’re just big mean bullies—”

They rounded the corner. I could see two guards pushing forward two more prisoners. The one speaking was a pretty human lass with long blonde hair and delicate features, whereas her far more silent companion was a particularly tall and muscular wood elf. I caught the wood elf’s eye as he passed my cell to give him a nod of recognition from one elf to another, but this only made him more nervous. He tensed and evaded my eyes.

The two were separated. The guards put the young woman in the cell with the Warforged, while the wood elf was shoved in the cell next to me with the unknown prisoner.

The previously-silent prisoner greeted his new cellmate. “Hello! Are you here for the contest, too?”

“Contest? What?” The wood elf’s voice was audibly perplexed.

Before their conversation could continue, the blonde girl’s demeanor shifted the moment she laid eyes on the strange fish-like man. She flashed an enormous smile, revealing deep dimples. “Oh, my goodness! And who might you be?”

This, of all things, caught the man off-guard. Dumbfounded, he replied, “Call me ... Grinfish,” then recovered enough to ask, “You wouldn’t happen to have ... a weapon?”

“Hey! No talk of escape!” One of the guards shrieked. All of them slammed their lances against the bars.

“I don’t.” The woman answered as if nothing had happened, scowling. “They took all my stuff and left me, a poor, defenseless girl, with no way to defend myself against the ruffians in prison.”

She put one delicate hand dramatically to her forehead.

“Francesca, don’t talk to him. He’s bound by silver,” The wood elf said. “What are you?”

Smiling, Grinfish shrugged coyly.

The tiefling woman made her way to the front of her cell and gazed out at us with a wicked smile. “My, you all sound interesting.”

Her voice made Grinfish point like a hunting dog. His eyes flashed with fury. “Thalia? Is that you? I can hear you.”

“I’m not talking to you, fish,” Thalia snapped. She put her hands on the bars and resumed her calm, languid demeanor. “Anyway, I am a pirate of Black Bess, and my crew is on the way to free me.”

Her words inspired another round of scolding from the guards.

Nonplussed, Thalia waited for them to finish, then continued, “Join us. We’ll help you escape.”

Around this time, I began to hear thunder and the pattering of rain on the roof. We heard shouting somewhere outside the jail. While the guards were distracted, the gnome finished her device, walked to the front of our cell, and slipped it quietly into one’s pocket.

The human woman called Francesca, meanwhile, ignored Thalia in favor of Grinfish. She tapped the guard in front of her cell.

“You know, I’m a Landon,” she told him with an easy smile. “Women of my rank aren’t meant for places like this. Could you just slip me, I don’t know, a small knife? Something to protect myself?”

The guard nervously looked to the faces of his companions, but they were paying more attention to Thalia. He slipped a knife to the girl.

“Thank you so much,” she gushed convincingly, then moved to the corner of her cell to toss the blade a short distance into Grinfish’s cell.

Several things happened at once.

The gnome’s device — an alarm — went off in the prison guard’s pocket, sending the guards into a distracted frenzy. Grinfish grabbed the knife and, with strange magic, stretched the blade into a long sword. He sliced cleanly through his chain and blew the door off his jail cell with a burst of water.

Opportunity knocked. I teleported the short distance to the equipment, unearthing my sword, traveling pack, and the single crystal earring I use as my focus. I brushed aside my hair to fasten it in place. I noticed a small mechanical griffin whirring nervously in the corner of the cell, but my attention was stolen by a crash in the direction of the entrance to the jail. Loud shouting and the clanging of metal drew nearer.

I looked to Thalia. She caught my eye and gave me a smug smile. The prison guards readied their weapons just as an onslaught of pirates filled the room and overwhelmed them. One of the pirates snatched a set of keys and tossed them to Thalia along with a pair of swords; she freed herself, walking out into the fray with weapons drawn, but she had eyes for no one but Grinfish. The pair clashed in their own personal fight.

The wind howled over the rooftop now. The structure shook and swayed under the weight of the pelting rain. One of the guards, impaled on a pirate’s scimitar, was pushed against the door of the equipment cell. I reached out and stole his keys, then pushed the door open enough to escape.

I could now see the wood elf’s cell mate was a massive earth genasi, more rock than mortal, with mottled grey and white skin and veins of silver threading his muscles. With a loud grunt he tore the door of his cell off its hinges. To the other side of me, the Warforged managed to do the same. I ducked and wove through the fight to hand off my keys to the gnome.

“Is that your griffin in the equipment room?” I yelled over the din of battle.

“That’s Ellie!” She shrieked. “Is she hurt?”

“No, just scared!”

Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of something strange. I could’ve sworn I saw a towering woman with black hair beside one of the jail’s load-bearing pillars. Just as I turned to look, a lightning bolt happened to strike the pillar. The roof came down. The walls shuddered. Rain washed in. The burst of cold wind was like a slap to the face.

In the chaos, several of the other inmates had retrieved their belongings from the equipment pile. We crowded together, away from the pirates at the other end of the room.

Thalia took her eyes off Grinfish to point her blade our way. “This is your final chance. Join us, or be marked for death.”

The Warforged lugged his mighty warhammer at the wall. It groaned, then collapsed. He turned and shouted to us in a country accent, “Come on, let’s move!”

We followed him. On our way out, I caught sight of Grinfish grabbing Francesca and whispering something to her before darting off again.

Outside, the sloped streets of the city ran with torrential rain. I could barely see ten feet in front of me.

“We just broke out of prison,” The gnome yelled. “Where do we even go from here?”

“Anywhere away from the pirates that want to kill us,” The Warforged yelled back.

Francesca piped up, “I was told there’s an inn nearby, the Lazy Eye. It’ll be safe for us.”

The gnome stared at her with wide, incredulous eyes. “And who told you that? The creepy fish guy?”

“I go where she goes,” The wood elf said. Lightning flickered and thunder crashed. He jumped.

“Let’s just go. We get somewhere safe tonight and figure it out tomorrow,” I said, nodding at the elf.

We ran down a dark back alley with Francesca in the lead, hoping the wild weather would conceal our path and footsteps despite the large size of our group.


	3. Day 1, Part 2: Lazy Eye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The escapees make their way to a safe sanctuary. To their surprise, it's a monster bar.

> _"Cas,_
> 
> _Abandon current target. I need you down south on the coast of the Heartlands. Getting a few tips telling me there’s some pirate conspiracy happening in a tourist trap built on top of an interplanar nexus._
> 
> _I’ll meet up with you as soon as I can, but some bastard gored me good yesterday and I can’t keep up my usual pace. And remember, no fucking warlocks this time. You owe me, asshole._
> 
> _Mags”_
> 
> — A letter recovered from an abandoned campsite just south of the Sanguine Swamps

The government district containing our jail house was in the northeast section of the city. The business and market districts — where the inn was located — were on the south end, towards the center. The other escapees and I crept through alleyways and side streets. 

We picked along our route with agonizing caution, careful to avoid the casino itself at the center of town. I think all of us quietly understood, for whatever reason, the casino had a hand in our sentence.

Evening began to fall on a city already darkened by clouds and rain. Then, stumbling out of a back road, we saw the tell-tale sign dangling from the front of an inn. A lantern nearby lit the inn’s name: “The Lazy Eye.” We made it.

As soon as we crossed the threshold, I knew this was no ordinary inn. The front doors slammed shut behind us and sealed us off from the world. I could hear no wind outside the Lazy Eye’s wooden walls; not even the rain on the windows made noise. Then, I saw the inn’s patrons — beast folk, goblinoids, orcs, goliaths, and all manner of unusual travelers. The bartender himself was a young half-orc wiping down the countertop.

Out of us, the Warforged and the genasi didn’t look so out-of-place here, but the rest of us caught some amused looks from the other patrons. We’d been given directions to a monster bar.

Francesca bounded up to the bar. “Hi!”

“Uh, hi.” The half-orc squinted at her, then looked to the rest of us.

“The man I’m going to marry told me we could stay here,” she declared.

He raised his eyebrows. “Did the man you’re going to marry tell you you need to pay?”

“What if I told you I could make you money?” With a grin, Francesca reached into her bag and pulled out a bright pink ukulele.

Something between amusement and genuine consideration crossed his face, and the half-orc said, “If you manage to make enough to cover your rooms — all of you — I’ll give you a round on the house.”

“Deal!”

The young woman ran onto a raised platform on one side of the bar. With the strum of her fingers, she launched into a clearly improvised song-and-dance routine about... chocolate. Still, she impressed me with her ability to entertain. The other patrons were shouting and clapping along with her simple choruses. A few even got up to dance. Francesca earned more than enough gold thrown her way to cover our rooms for the night, then kept performing anyway.

The bartender followed through on his promise for a round of drinks, but I tossed him a few silver’s worth as a tip anyway.

“Awright,” The Warforged began, gingerly pushing his untouched drink towards the earth genasi. “Let’s get down to brass tacks. Who are y’all?”

“Orre,” said the genasi. “I’m here to fight in the contest!”

“What contest? You keep saying that,” The gnome asked.

“The tournament! To win the prize!”

“A’ight. We’re gettin’ distracted. Next.”

The gnome looked thoughtful as she patted the mechanical griffin I’d seen in the jail. “Not sure if I should trust you all, but here goes. Gimbal. I’m an artificer. This is Ellie.”

“My name is Valarr Vhaegar,” the wood elf followed.

“My companion, I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, is the Lady Francesca Landon.”

“The runaway?” I asked, taking a drink. “Wasn’t she engaged to another nobleman?”

Valarr let a small smile peak through. “It was arranged. As I’m sure you can imagine, that did not sit well with her.”

“So what does that make you? Her lover?” I leaned in close.

“Francesca and I have no such relationship,” He laughed. “I am a wandering paladin who offered my aid to another traveler in need, nothing more.”

The Warforged interrupted, “And you, pearly? Don’t see many wizards runnin’ around wavin’ a sword.”

I shrugged coyly. “I’m Piscín. A Bladesinger.”

“I’m definitely not gonna remember these names,” The Warforged sighed. “Call me Nickel. I’m mining equipment from a little farmin’ village up north.”

There was a crash and a yell. We turned. Orre had downed both of the drinks in front of him, and his seat was empty. Standing up, I looked to the other side of the bar, where the genasi stood on a now-broken round table with his weapons drawn.

“Who dares to fight me?” He challenged. “I will prove myself in battle!”

Orre brandished his weapons in the face of other patrons. He moved around the room, continually throwing out threats.

“Should we stop him?” Gimbal asked nervously.

Valarr stood and placed his hand at the ready on the pommel of his sword. However, at that moment, a tall, thin woman obscured by a cloak approached Orre with an intimidating bugbear by her side. The two strangers cornered Orre and spoke quietly with him. Whatever the cloaked woman said appeared to settle him; he took a seat at the bar, while the woman sent her bugbear companion away.

I felt the stir of magic at my side and looked to Gimbal. Her eyes flitted around the inn curiously. I sensed a detection spell on her. She turned slowly, then I saw her gaze settle on Valarr. A look of confusion crossed Gimbal’s face, and she opened her mouth to speak.

“My, aren’t we nosy,” I heard a low voice behind us.

My back straightened instinctively. When had the cloaked woman made her way behind us? She stared, unblinking, down at Gimbal. At this angle I could see under the shadow of her hood she was quite old, and one of her eyes was crafted from pearl.

“I-I, uh,” Gimbal stammered, “I’m sorry, ma’am. Won’t happen again.”

The woman regarded us for another moment, then slid silently away. From her statuesque demeanor and the way the regulars acknowledged her with a respectful nod, I presumed the woman was the innkeeper of the Lazy Eye. I turned back to look at Gimbal. The gnome eyed Valarr again but decided against voicing her thought. I wondered what she’d seen in him.

The innkeeper’s bugbear companion slammed back through the front doors. An armored hobgoblin accompanied him this time, and both approached the bar where Orre still sat.

“Are you here to fight me?” The genasi asked.

“I don’t know what you’re on about,” The hobgoblin told him, “but there is no fighting of any kind inside the Lazy Eye.” He turned his attention to the rest of us at the table. “That goes for all of you. I’m Drü. I’m the bouncer here. I’m watching you.”

Orre stood up and shouted, “Who wants to fight me outside?”

I covered my face. Valarr moved swiftly to Orre’s side, putting a gentle hand on the genasi’s arm and encouraging him to sit back down.

“We must rest for tonight. It is late, and we have had a full day. Tomorrow you can find a worthy opponent,” The elf assured him. Orre scowled but obeyed.

Wrapping up her performance, Francesca leaped off the stage and skipped to the bar. “Bartender! It’s my turn for a drink. And could I order a round of drinks for the whole bar too?”

“I have a name, you know.” He slammed a shot glass of some clear fluid directly in front of her.

“What is it?”

“Teeth.”

Her eyes opened wide. “Your name is Teeth? Oh, do you know Grinfish? He told me to come here. I’m gonna marry him.”

At that, Teeth laughed. “Do your shot.”

He left her to her liquor, turning to grab a pitcher of beer and refresh all the patrons’ drinks. Customers who regarded us with suspicion before now raised their glasses in gratitude and respect. I relaxed some. Francesca’s proclivity for extravagance was coming in handy.

Shortly after, we retired to our rooms. They were modest arrangements — one bed, sparse furnishings. The table in the corner was just large enough for me to scribble the day’s events in my journal. After stripping out of my sopping wet day clothes, I crawled into bed. Falling into my elven trance was easy; my body hungered for rest.

I mistook my dream for morning. I awoke not in the inn, but in a luxurious bed. A sheer canopy fell over me. Dark hooded figures wearing deer skulls with antlers crowded around my bed. They had knives. I tried to move but couldn’t. They drew in close and began to stab me. I screamed in pain, then fell. My eyes snapped open, and I found myself on hard floorboards and tangled in my bed sheets.


	4. Day 2, Part 1: Medusa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party begins to research the history of the Golden Bay and turn up some startling discoveries. On top of that, it turns out the mysterious innkeeper has some secrets of her own.

Elves often wake hours before others, needing less rest than shorter-lived races. A paradox, I often thought. Why did those with less time spend most of it asleep? I sat awake for a few bells in the dark blue shades of early morning, ruminating on my disturbing dream. Then, when the sun’s first golden rays spilled over the horizon, I caught the scent of eggs cooking downstairs and stirred from my meditations.

Boarding at the inn apparently came with complementary breakfast, I soon discovered. However, the Lazy Eye’s idea of “breakfast” was just a plate of scrambled eggs as cooked by Teeth himself. The half-orc bid me a cheerful good morning and slid me a plate.

Several of my companions — Nickel, Orre, and Valarr — were already seated at a nearby table. I made my way across the room towards them.

“Where’s Francesca?” I asked Valarr in Elvish.

I caught the faintest hesitation in him before he replied in the same tongue, “She is asleep. She drank too much.”

Was that an accent? But from where? I tilted my head.

“Gimbal’s out,” Nickel said.

“What do you mean, out?” I said, pulling out a chair and sitting down. “We’re escaped convicts.”

“She’s apparently got some magic what makes her invisible. Went out to get a read on the situation, maybe see if she can find a way outta here or at least some more information on those dang pirates.”

I jabbed my thumb over my shoulder. “Have we tried talking to the bartender?”

“He fakes a hangover every time we ask him any questions,” Nickel muttered in annoyance.

“Uuuuughhh,” Teeth howled behind us, draping over the countertop and holding his head in exaggerated pain for dramatic effect, “This damn headache!”

Orre finished his plate of eggs and began devouring the plate in front of Nickel.

“Excuse me.”

“You weren’t eating it. I need strength,” Orre insisted between bites, “for the contest!”

Valarr opened his mouth to say something, then decided against it and let out a long, slow sigh.

Just then, the door to the inn swung open. No one appeared to enter, but the squeaking on the floorboards told us someone was there.

Orre rose from his seat, pulling a sword free from its sheathe. “Reveal yourself, demon!”

“It’s just me!” A small voice squeaked. Gimbal shimmered back into view. She was accompanied by Ellie, who barked and whirred in front of her owner like a protective dog. Gimbal herself was burdened with an armful of books. “Could somebody handle these books?”

Valarr and I took the massive, old tomes from her hands and rested them carefully on the tabletop. They were yellow with age, hardcovers warped and rotted by long-term exposure to seawater.

The gnome hopped up into a chair. “Lots and lots of patrol guards out today. Couldn’t find much help at the guild, either. So I went to the library and, uhh, may or may not have stolen a few books out of the historical texts section.”

I leafed through the delicate pages. “We’ll have to take some time to look at these in detail.”

“I mean, what else are we doing for now besides hiding out?” Valarr asked in amusement.

“Fighting!” Orre shouted, holding up his sword again.

“You!” Teeth got out two pans and banged them together, then pointed one of them at Orre. “Put that away right now. No unsheathed weapons in the Lazy Eye. And no fighting!”

The genasi sat back down. “That is fine. My best sword has been lost anyway. I must find another weapon to replace it.”

“Lost?” I asked.

He gestured to the hilt at his side. There was the beginning of a fine blade jutting out from the hilt, but it was broken clean off as if it had been snapped like a twig. I squinted incredulously.

“How?”

“The monster. In the caves.”

“Orre, there is no contest and there is no monster,” Gimbal said, punctuating each word with an insistent hand-chop to the table.

“You lie!”

“Hey!”

All of us turned to see Francesca, coming out of her room at last. Her messy blonde waves fell around her shoulders in tousled ringlets. She stretched, a sleepy smile on her face, and seated herself at the table.

“Teeth, breakfast,” she called lazily, snapping her fingers.

“Ask nicely.”

“Please!”

He wandered into the kitchen to make more eggs.

“Anyway,” she began, “I’m dying.”

Francesca held out one of her hands, laying the other across her forehead as if she felt faint and giving a pathetic cough. Despite her obviously false performance, there was, in fact, a slick black patch of skin on the palm of her hand. Gimbal and I, the more magically-inclined among us, gathered around her hand to inspect the mark. We deduced it had some extraplanar nature.

“It’s not of the Material Plane, but I’m unsure of its origin,” I said. I ran one finger along the mark. “It feels like fish scales, almost, or perhaps frog skin.”

Francesca huffed. “I can’t perform with a blemish on my hand. Who wants to go shopping with me? I need gloves.”

“Not me,” Nickel said.

“I will!” Orre showed her his broken sword. “I need a blacksmith!”

“Valarr, come with us,” Francesca said.

The wood elf looked to the bright late-morning light spilling in through the nearest window. “...I think I will stay here and help Gimbal look through the books.”

“That sounds like an excellent idea, Valarr,” I agreed.

“You’re all mean,” Francesca said, pouting, “except Orre. C’mon, Orre, let’s go.”

“Don’t get caught. Come back soon,” Valarr called.

The genasi tilted back the rest of Nickel’s plate of eggs, dumping them into his mouth. He hopped to his feet, knocked over his chair, and jogged to keep up with the bard as she turned to approach the front doors. As they left, I heard Orre say, “You know, we could get rid of that mark by cutting your hand off,” to which Francesca replied, “What?!” as the door shut behind them.

“Do you think it was smart to let them go alone?” I asked Valarr.

He laughed. “No.”

Nickel let out a pneumatic hiss akin to a sigh. “If somebody tries to come after them, I reckon the big guy will think it’s part of some competition and take them down.”

“Okay, so,” Gimbal flipped open one of the books, “While they’re out, we can check these books out. I found everything I possibly could about the pirates of Black Bess in the library. And also found this map of an underground cave system.”

We all leaned in as she unrolled a massive blueprint of tunnels underneath the city.

“Whoa. How long have these been here? I’ve been staying in this city for months and never heard anything about them,” I said, perusing the routes.

The door to the kitchen flapped open. Teeth walked out with a plate of eggs, then stopped in his tracks as he noticed Francesca’s empty chair. “Where’s the kid?”

Gimbal let the map roll back into itself with a snap.

“Oh, she just left,” Valarr said, then looked to Gimbal. “Have you eaten?”

“I’ll take it, thanks.”

Teeth handed over the plate, grumbling, then went to the front window to flip the sign to “open.”

“We might want to go somewhere private to check these out,” I suggested.

Inside the inn, most of the guests stayed on the first floor. An open upper floor with a balcony overlooked the stage and tavern, and a few suites for wealthier visitors were located upstairs in a more private hallway. Gimbal, Valarr, and I gathered the old books and maps in our arms and withdrew to the quieter alcove overlooking the bar.

As we set up shop at a table, Gimbal noticed something. “What’s that?”

I looked up and blinked. The gnome was pointing to a darkened, slimmer hallway set apart from the corridor with the suites. How had I not noticed that?

“Hm. I actually don’t know.”

Gimbal walked to investigate her new finding, but stopped cold in the doorway.

“What’s wrong?” Valarr asked.

“I can’t... pass it,” she said. Ellie whirred nervously.

I raised my eyebrows. “A warded hallway in an inn? Probably the proprietor’s private quarters.”

Nodding, the gnome backed up from the door and joined us at the table.

A cursory glance through the books proved frustrating. The figure known as “Black Bess” served primarily as some kind of boogeyman to make children go to bed on time. Many of the texts were political secondary sources rather than the accounts of firsthand witnesses. In fact, the city itself was founded less than a human lifetime ago.

We only researched for a short time before Valarr, looking back over his shoulder, gave me a hard tap. I threw a look back. The cloaked woman from the previous evening emerged from the warded hallway.

She noticed us immediately and settled her intense gaze on us.

“Ah, my guests,” she mused, approaching us, “did you sleep well?”

“Yes, thank you for your hospitality,” Valarr told her.  
She regarded him for a long, unblinking moment, then smiled. “You may call me Dysus.”

“Gimbal.”

“Valarr Vhaegar.”

I dipped my head in a respectful greeting. “Piscín Bán.”

“Ma’am — Dysus — I hope I’m not crossing a line here, but would you happen to know much about this city? These books aren’t too helpful,” Gimbal asked.

Dysus lowered her hood then, and the three of us leaned back instinctively; Gimbal gasped aloud before pressing one hand to her mouth. Dysus patted the writhing mass of thin, living snakes where hair should have been.

“Be glad I don’t have my other eye,” the old Medusa said with a lilt of amusement. “I am not native to this city, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, but I’m not surprised the humans’ texts don’t have much on the history of the bay.”

“Why?”

Dysus had lost interest in our questions, however, and turned to address Valarr specifically. “You — how did you end up here? I’d love to speak with you in my quarters.”

He shot me a sheepish look, then spoke. “I wouldn’t want to impose.”

“Consider it an exchange, then,” she said. “Knowledge for knowledge.”

I mouthed, Go on, and Valarr sighed and stood. “Very well.”

Gimbal and I looked at one another as he disappeared into the private quarters of a Medusa.


	5. Day 2, Part 2: Book Club

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rabbit hole of secrets goes deeper and deeper as Piscín gets closer to Valarr. Meanwhile, Francesca's strange affliction ends up being the key to more information.

> _“My younger brother is currently in quite a bit of trouble, you see. My parents write to tell me he pulled a protective magical ring out of the family collection and gave it to whatever woman captured his affections that week. [...] Unfortunately, it was much later Pascal discovered we had kept that ring due to the trapped soul tethered to it. Whatever the case, she left and he knows not where she went.”_
> 
> — An excerpt from a letter written by Crown Prince Kyros Kaladan of Avadra

Gimbal and I did our best to focus on doing more research, but we couldn’t keep ourselves from chattering in giddy excitement the longer Valarr remained gone.

“A Medusa? Come to run an inn here, this far from the Labyrinthine Country?” I did my best to keep my voice down and failed.

“And what about Valarr?” Gimbal added. “She must have seen the same thing I saw last night.”

“What did you see?”

“I cast a magic detection spell on the inn and Valarr lit up like a pyrotechnics display! I don’t know what’s going on, but he’s covered in magic.”

I stared at her. “What?”

“I don’t know!”

The elf returned, alone, but wearing a look that was both bashful and smug. I couldn’t help myself. I ran from my chair so fast it wobbled and grabbed him.

“What? You have to tell me everything,” I whispered hard.

Valarr motioned for the two of us to gather around. We leaned in close.

“She came to the bay for a place to settle down with her hoard of artifacts and treasures. That’s why her quarters are so heavily hidden and warded,” he explained. “She asked to know of my past in exchange for lower rent, so I got us a discount. Also, she was open to discussing the House with me. The halflings that founded the casino came here out of their loyalty to the goddess of luck, Tymora, and she has a sort of peace treaty with them.”

“A peace treaty?”

“The casino’s people can’t come here, and she doesn’t harm them.”

“Hm. That just feeds my theory the casino runs this city more than they let on,” I mentioned.

He nodded. “That also means we are safe here, because the casino’s corruption can’t reach us.”

“Is that all?” Gimbal nudged him.

“I also found out more about Francesca’s mark. Dysus says it’s likely a way for her to contact Grinfish. Remember he kissed her hand before we left the jail? Oh, and she told me if we allied ourselves with the pirates, we’d no longer be allowed back.”

Just as he finished saying that, the doors opened and closed downstairs. Francesca’s voice floated up to our ears.

“...Can’t believe people in this city are looking at us so funny,” She complained. “Is there something on my face? This mark must be making me look hideous!”

The three of us stacked our books and papers and moved back downstairs to join the others. Orre was showing off his “unbreakable” sword, as well as a “potion” he’d bought that supposedly caused limbs to regrow. Upon further inspection, I noted the potion was just beer and wondered how much gold he’d spent being swindled.

Francesca, on the other hand, looked quite lovely. She wore a pair of delicate blue, beaded gloves, as well as a short wrap-around dress made of the same blue material.

She bounded up to us and did a twirl. “Valarr, look! Grinfish will have to love me now, right?”

“Speaking of Grinfish,” Valarr said, “I just spoke to the innkeeper, who seems to think the mark on your hand isn’t a disease at all. It’s a way of contacting Grinfish.”

Francesca froze, then immediately tried to yell into her hand.

I put my hand on her arm. “It... probably doesn’t work that way, Francesca.”

She scowled. “Call me Frankie. Valarr’s the only one who calls me Francesca, like an old man.”

Ignoring her, I pulled back the fabric of her glove and inspected the mark on her palm again. Extraplanar, definitely — school of enchantment --  
Elemental.

“Of course,” I muttered. “I feel ridiculous. This is primordial magic, specifically from the Plane of Water. Our best bet would be to submerge her hand in water.”

“‘Of course, that’s the most obvious thing ever,’” Teeth repeated mockingly. He emerged from the back room with his arms full of cleaning supplies. “I gotta get this place looking nice before the crowds. If you all are going to be hanging around in here, help me out. Otherwise, go away.”

Nickel, who was already wiping down a table nearby, uttered a low snicker.

“I don’t want to work,” Frankie pouted. “I want to talk to Grinfish.”

“I know one thing, and that’s that you ain’t throwin’ us out of the only safe spot in the city,” Nickel said. “Get a broom. You can talk to your fish lover later.”

We spent the better part of the afternoon earning our keep at the inn. Despite his seeming annoyance with us, Teeth got a great deal of amusement out of cupping his hand around Frankie’s ear and delighting her with all sorts of troublesome ideas. Valarr got his fair share of physical activity by chasing her down and scolding her after she pulled some prank or another.

“You know, you could just let her act up,” I told him after Frankie ran off again. “She’s a grown adult. She can make her own choices.”

He snorted. “I know, I know. That’s what got me in trouble in the first place. Francesca was arrested by the guards, not me, but I took responsibility for her. She’s... spoiled and sheltered. She doesn’t know anything about the world.”

I stopped mopping and leaned on the handle for a moment. “How did you end up following her around, anyway?”

“She was the first person to speak to me since I left home,” Valarr told me, a small smile on his lips as he wiped down a table. “A runaway, just like me, except she wasn’t scared at all. To her, the world was this exciting place full of possibility. So I let her follow me, and somehow I ended up following her.”

Satisfied with this answer, I turned away and went back to mopping.

“What about you? Why are you all alone?”

Valarr’s question caught me off guard. I hesitated, then replied, “It’s pretty normal for us moon elves to wander about alone. We’ll travel in groups, too, but we’re known for being...”

“Independent?”

“Free,” I agreed, then added with a wink, “And social. Most half-elves are half-moons, you know.”

He lapsed into thoughtful silence for a spell, then replied, “That sounds wonderful.”

“It was. Well, it is, still. But it was more wonderful when I was younger.” I dipped the mop back into its bucket and took a moment to run a thumb over my ring. “You get into your second century, and you start to realize not a whole lot lasts as long as you do.”

My words must have inspired something in Valarr, because he looked stricken, as if this thought hadn’t occurred to him. He cast a wistful look in Frankie’s direction; she was happily tuning her ukulele and singing a few vocal warm-ups on the other side of the room, her broom abandoned against a wall.

“How old are you, Valarr?”

“Not quite 200,” he said.

“Hey, we’re close. I’m 204.” I smiled, reached out, and put a hand on his shoulder. “Look. Frankie’s young. You have five or six more decades with her.”

He relaxed. “Thank you. As soon as we’re done with this, we should get back to the books, though. None of us are going to have much more time unless we find a safe way out of the city.”

Valarr was right. After wrapping up our chores, he and I found a secluded corner out of the way. I invited Gimbal to join, but the small artificer had managed to corner Nickel at long last and was analyzing the Warforged with unabashed enthusiasm. With a laugh, we went back to doing research, even as patrons began to trickle into the tavern.

I noticed Frankie pointing to us as she whispered something in Teeth’s ear. He said something back to her, and she nodded, grabbing her ukulele and flitting onstage. The bard launched into a performance, instantly captivating her audience.

Valarr pointed to a passage in his text and leaned over to show it to me. “Look. This book says before the Crown took over the bay, it was a pirate cove and smuggler’s den.”

“Valarr, you’re brilliant,” I exclaimed. “This place belonged to the pirates—”

“All right, devils and demons, our lovely lady ordered another round of ale for everybody,” Teeth boomed. He grabbed two tankards of a foul-smelling drink and slammed them in front of us, using his arm to sweep our books onto the floor. “And a special something for the elf book club!”

From the stage, Frankie yelled, “Come on, you can read those tomorrow.”

A rowdy cheer erupted from the crowd. Valarr and I glanced at one another and sighed, but picked up our drinks all the same. I held mine aloft.

“To getting out of here alive,” I said.

“I’ll drink to that.” He tapped his tankard to mine.

We both threw back our heads and took a swig.


	6. Day 3, Part 1: Valarr

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A wild night leads to hangovers in the morning. However, the gang gets a surprise over breakfast, manages to contact Grinfish again, and discovers Valarr's big secret.

I stirred out of unconsciousness on a hard wooden floor. A moment of confusion passed before the scent of cooking eggs called my memory back through the fog of a throbbing migraine. Sunlight felt white-hot to my vision. I squeezed my eyes shut as I pushed myself upright.

My head bumped the edge of a bar stool. Looking up, I realized I feel asleep on the floor right behind the stool. Had I fallen off?

I looked around the bar. Frankie was curled up in the corner, clutching a bottle of liquor, and Gimbal was asleep at a table. Nickel powered down in a corner, motionless. Valarr and Orre were both nowhere to be seen.

“Valarr?” I called weakly. The sound of my own voice sent another pulsing wave of pain through my head.

I heard a soft whine, then a panicked, if a bit muffled, “ah!”

“Valarr, is that you?”

“Piscín, don’t—”

“Are you behind the bar?”

Just as I started to grab onto the counter to pull myself up, Teeth came out of the back room shouting, “EEEEEEEGGS!” at a full bellow. I clapped my hands to my ears and cringed.

The half-orc threw the massive plate of scrambled eggs haphazardly onto the counter with a clang and said, “There better not be somebody in my cabinets crawlin’ all over my onions!”

“Ah— please— just one more moment—!”

Teeth threw open a cabinet door and scowled. “No patrons behind the bar!”

With one heave, he grabbed Valarr by the collar of his shirt and tossed him over the counter. Valarr tucked and rolled, then lay flat on the hardwood floor for a beat.

“You okay?” I asked.

He patted himself down, then breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah. Yes, I’m fine.”

Orre wandered out into the main area before I had the chance to ask what happened. The genasi didn’t look the least bit hungover, and he happened to be holding Gimbal’s books.

“How did you end up with the books?” I asked.

“You handed them to me,” Orre said, setting the books on a table, “because I was not drinking the poison.”

Between Teeth’s loud breakfast announcement and Orre’s complete lack of a inside voice, the others in the room began to stir. Frankie unfurled herself and stretched; Gimbal sat up with a hand to her forehead. Nickel’s eyes flickered to life. After a few moments of remembering — or rather, failing to remember — the previous evening, we managed to drag ourselves to one table and sit silently around the communal plate of eggs.

At that moment, a knock sounded at the door of the inn. We looked around at one another in confusion, then at Teeth.

The bartender, who was in the middle of tossing out empty glass liquor bottles, yelled, “You can just come in. This is a bar, not a house.”

There was a pause, then another knock.

Orre was the one who stood and walked to the door. Throwing it open, he looked at the visitor, then announced to the rest of us, “It is a child!” He then stepped outside and shut the door behind him. All of us at the table exchanged looks. Orre returned after a few tense moments. In his hands he held some kind of decree, printed on thick, expensive paper and emblazoned with the official seal of the Smiling Lady.

“Orre,” Gimbal said slowly, “was that a child, or was it a halfling?”

The earth genasi paused and looked at her in confusion. “What?”

I stood and took the paper from him. From a quick skim, it looked like, of all things, an offer to meet and negotiate. Waving the others to a quiet corner where other patrons wouldn’t hear us, I read the paper out loud. Sure enough, the owner of the Smiling Lady Casino, Belfast, was offering to pardon us in exchange for a meeting.

“This is how deep the casino has its claws in this city,” I commented. “The fact they sent a herald from the Smiling Lady instead of the official law enforcement—”

“I don’t trust them. This sounds like a trap,” Valarr said.

I nodded.

Nickel chimed in, “Y’all found out yesterday the mark on Frankie’s hand was a way to contact that Grinfish fella, right? What if we talk to him an’ see what he thinks about this here proposition before we make a decision?”

“I wanna talk to Grinfish!” Frankie sat upright and beamed.

Looking over the decree, I noticed something. “Oh, Grinfish’s name isn’t on the list of escapees invited to the casino to be pardoned. Neither is Thalia’s. It’s just the six of us.”

“All the more reason to look into his connection to this inn and the pirates,” Valarr said.

Nickel shifted back in his chair and stood. “Awright, here’s the deal. The pearly-lookin’ elf mentioned yesterday this mark would work best in water. Let’s try some saltwater first and if that don’t work, I have magic that can remove the salt. Got it?”

“We should go to a private room for this,” I said.

Gimbal balanced the stack of books in her arms. “While you’re all doing that, I’m going to give these books one last run-through. See what I can find.”

“Sounds good!”

After a bit of negotiating with Teeth for one of the pricier suites on the second floor (and enduring his exasperated looks when we asked for a bowl of brine), Frankie, Valarr, Nickel, and I retreated into privacy.

We distracted Orre by entrusting him with Gimbal’s griffin construct Ellie. The genasi, puzzled by the existence of the magical metal creature, tended dutifully to his charge with watchful, if a bit cautious, eyes. If nothing else, it kept him from his fancies of a nonexistent fighting contest.

In the suite upstairs, I pulled a chair to the middle of the room and set the bowl on it. “Frankie, you stand here.”

She moved up to the bowl while the rest of us sat on the bed or dispersed around the room. Nickel leaned in the corner, a comfortable distance from the rest of us. We lapsed into silence. Looking from face to face, Frankie held the hand with the mark on it above the water. Valarr gave her an encouraging nod.

Frankie plunged her hand into the water and closed her eyes. After a moment, I saw a smile cross her face. “Oh, Grinfish, I’ve been waiting for you.”

Another pause. Frankie listened to a voice the rest of us could not hear.

“I want to see you again. Will you be coming to the inn soon?” She shifted from one foot to the other as she continued listening. “Yes, we’re all here. We got a message from the House asking us to come talk to them.”

I looked around to the others in the room. Should we have kept that under wraps?

“Tonight?” Frankie pouted. “What if I want to see you before then?”

Another moment of listening passed while Grinfish spoke to her.

“Okay, fine. Be safe.” She opened her eyes and pulled her hand out of the bowl.

“Is he coming to the inn tonight?” Valarr asked.

“Yeah. He said he’s busy right now, but he wants us to wait on the House thing until after we talk to him. But if we really, really need him before tonight, we can just go to the cliff on the west side of the city.”

“I reckon we can be patient,” Nickel said. “Where else we have ta go ‘round here?”

We filtered back downstairs. Orre was standing guard over Ellie with his hand on the pommel of his sword; he’d barely moved in the time we’d been gone. As soon as we arrived, however, Gimbal immediately began shrieking excitedly and holding up a book to us. She pointed at a passage in the text wildly.

I drew closer and picked up the book. My eyes skimmed the page.

“‘The pirate fleet occupying the bay prior to their removal from the region appear to double as a sort of religious organization serving the goddess of misfortune Beshaba, also known in laymen’s terms as’...” I froze. “‘Black Bess.’”

“The two goddesses are twins,” Gimbal said. “Tymora and Beshaba, good luck and bad luck. Beshaba wants her city back. Guess what her symbol is?”

“Hm?”

“Antlers.”

My mind flashed to Thalia, the tiefling pirate with antlers. I remembered the tall, feminine apparition I’d seen in the jail house in the corner of my vision.

“The pirates lost this bay 70 years ago. They even know the name of the pirate captain who lost the fight against the Crown’s men.”

“‘Egrin Dreed,’” I murmured, turning the page. “Egrin... what if...”

“Where did Francesca go?” Valarr interrupted.

I looked up from the book and glanced around. Everyone else in our group turned, surveying the inn. Frankie was nowhere to be seen. The front door of the inn clicked shut.

“Grinfish told her if she needed him before tonight to go to the cliffs.” Valarr ran to the door and threw it open. “Damn it, Francesca!”

Sunlight spilled in through the threshold. Watching Valarr clap his hands to his eyes with a pained grunt, something clicked in me. He said he was a runaway, I heard an accent when he was speaking Elvish, sunlight hurt his eyes, Gimbal told me his entire body was covered with magic --

He took a step into the streets. I threw the book onto the table and sprinted after him. Before I could catch up, Valarr summoned a white horse and threw his leg across its back, riding through the crowded streets.

“Valarr!” I called.

He was too far away to hear me. I saw him pluck Frankie out of a throng of people. She fought him. Valarr tried to drag her onto his horse, but she flailed wildly, kicking and screaming. A stray elbow caught Valarr in the face. He reeled backwards, just barely managing to stay on the horse and keep Frankie in his grasp, but in doing so...

He lost control of the glamour disguising him as a wood elf.

A mounted drow sat in the middle of a crowded street, clutching a kicking, screaming human woman in his grasp.

“Fuck!” I yelled, clapping my hand to my forehead.

Valarr realized what happened when people began to stare and point. Panicked, he forced Frankie onto the saddle in front of him, grabbed the reins of his horse, turned, and fled back towards the inn. I grabbed the front doors and held them open. Dismissing his summoned horse from underneath him, Valarr catapulted himself, Frankie still in his arms, back into the Lazy Eye. They slid across the hardwood floors. As soon as they were inside, I slammed the doors behind me.

The noise of the increasingly hostile crowd outside vanished behind the warded doors.


	7. Day 3, Part 2: Escape Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Matters with Valarr get settled, and the party endures a grueling day of waiting for their only way out to come back to the inn.

“Piscín... I’m so sorry...”

I still faced the doors I’d just pulled shut. There were murmurs among the patrons in the dining area behind us. I wanted to turn around, but my hands held tightly to the handles.

“Wh-what’s everyone looking so weird for?” Frankie ventured.

I swiveled to face them. Valarr was on the floor. His wood elf disguise was still gone, but despite the silver hair and pitch-black skin, he looked very much the same to me — the same nervous eyes in a kind face.

“There’s no need for you to apologize to me,” I said.

He let out a long, slow sigh of relief and closed his eyes.

I held out my hand. “You’re a paladin, yes? Who do you serve?”

“Eilistraee,” he said, taking up the offer. I helped pull him to his feet.

I looked past Valarr to the other patrons. Many didn’t seem to care beyond a curious look here and there. Despite the rarity of surface drow, this was still a monster bar. Orre looked more bewildered by the tense atmosphere than Valarr’s appearance, Nickel didn’t have much in the way of facial expressions, and Gimbal looked like she was still mentally processing what, exactly, had happened.

I looked to them. “Valarr is one of us. He’s been with us since the escape. This changes nothing.”

The other three looked to one another, then nodded in agreement. Frankie shuffled anxiously in the background, kicking her feet like a child in trouble.

“There is something else I want to tell you, er, everyone,” Valarr said. He stumbled over his words and paused, then looked to me for confidence. “When I ran through the streets after Francesca, I saw what I think were pirates, but in priest garb. They bore antlers on their heads and wielded staves.”

“Damn. They know where we are,” Nickel said.

“I will fight them with my unbreakable sword,” Orre declared.

“Not right now, you won’t. Did you see them people out there?”

“Nickel’s right,” I said. “We know the truth of the situation, but what the people out there saw just now was a drow snatching a young girl out of the crowd and riding away with her. It’s gonna be bad out there.”

“I got Valarr in trouble,” Frankie wept.

Valarr began to protest but stopped himself. He regarded her thoughtfully, then said, “Francesca, we are in a dangerous situation. You cannot just do whatever you want without consequences.”

Frankie looked at him, shocked. For the first time, she wasn’t sure what to say.

“W-well, anyway, now that that’s over with, I’ll just wait here for Grinfish,” she managed.

The rest of the afternoon passed slowly. Staying in the safe walls of the inn guaranteed our survival, but also began to grate on us. As a nomad, I felt the burning, claustrophobic twitch of wanderlust picking at my bones. I wanted something, anything, to happen. Anything besides staying trapped in these four walls.

Frankie seemed evasive at first, but soon warmed up to Valarr again, though she passed most of the afternoon talking to Teeth. At some point she retrieved her ukulele and, while strumming it absently, Teeth began to whisper potential topics for her next song. They laughed among themselves.

“I’m sorry for my initial deceit,” Valarr said, suddenly.

I took a sip of my tea. “I told you, you don’t have to apologize to me.”

Across the bar, I could see Orre and Gimbal having an animated conversation about his sword. The personnel here had gotten used to us and didn’t seem to mind Orre having his weapon out on the table. Gimbal inspected it and chattered as she admired the blacksmith’s handiwork; whatever she was saying, Orre looked impressed with her knowledge.

“You’re the first surface elf I’ve actually spoken to at length,” Valarr continued. “I wanted to tell you. I meant to tell you.”

“You had absolutely no obligation to tell someone you’ve only known for a few days something you kept secret for your own protection,” I told him.

He opened his mouth to speak again, but Frankie’s melodic singing voice caught our attention. She threw herself into a passionate song about the great adventurer Teeth, constructing stanza after stanza of increasingly ludicrous stories of his heroic deeds. Valarr and I looked over at the half-orc. Teeth was having a wonderful time dancing and grinning to himself behind the bar.

I caught his eye and shook my eye at him. He just raised his eyebrows and nodded back to me.

Sometime during the song, Teeth had to tend to a food order in the kitchen. As soon as the door swung shut behind him, I heard the clatter of a cabinet door. Valarr and I peered over the counter top. Crawling out of the onion cabinet was a familiar lanky man with wet, stringy hair. Grinfish, clad in a ratty tunic and pants but wearing a surprisingly well-kept (stolen?) coat, rose above the height of the counter and smoothed back his long hair, which was matted with seaweed and pearls.

When his dead-eyed stare settled on the two of us, he smiled just a bit too wide with a few too many teeth. “Ah! There you are.”

“We have a few questions for you,” I said to him in Primordial.

Grinfish froze and closed his eyes, sucking on the inside of his cheek for a few minutes as he contemplated what he’d just heard. Then, he replied in the same language, “I have some answers.”

I heard a shrill, delighted shriek as Frankie finished her song and noticed her crush. She collected the gold patrons had been throwing her way and threw herself towards the bar as quickly as her feet could carry her.

Gimbal, Nickel, and Orre, alerted to his presence, also gathered around the bar. Orre looked especially cautious and intrigued. He and Grinfish looked one another over — two elementals of opposing planes. The tense feeling between them was ancient, instinctive.

“My love, I have waited to see you for so long,” Frankie declared, leaning over the bar to flirt with Grinfish more effectively.

He blinked at her, still apparently unsure how to handle her affections. “I... have a plan to escape from this city, but we must discuss it in private.”

“What did I tell you!” Teeth slammed through the door from the kitchen and set down the plate of appetizers he’d brought with him. “No! Patrons! Behind the bar!”

He grabbed Grinfish and threw him over the counter. Grinfish rolled onto his feet, unfazed, then put his finger to his lips and motioned for us to stay at the bar. He scrambled up the stairs to the second floor of the inn. After what felt like an eternity of waiting, he leaned over the balcony overlooking the main floor and gestured for us to come upstairs.

I was surprised when Grinfish lead us past the ward that protected Dysus’s private quarters. Halfway down the hallway, before we got to the Medusa’s room and treasure hoard, he paused and opened a secret door in the wall. The room was stone and devoid of any furniture.

“What room is this?” Frankie asked.

“My room,” Grinfish replied, “though Dysus would never let me stay here extensively.”

He waved his hand as if to dismiss the topic and leaped into a different discussion. “There is something you must do for me, and afterwards, I can get you access to the knowledge you need to escape the city. What do you know of Thalia?”

“She’s a pirate,” Gimbal offered. “She works for the goddess of misfortune. That’s all we know.”

“That’s exactly it. How does one become the second mate to a goddess? You go further than anyone else would dare.” Grinfish mimed lifting an eye patch. “Thalia didn’t lose her eye; she stole one. Dysus’s other eye is beneath the patch. The old Medusa can only paralyze people, not turn them to stone. She’s beginning to calcify.”

He went on to explain that if we retrieved the old Medusa’s eye, we may be able to negotiate for access to her archives, a library of knowledge spanning millennia.

“How could we possibly accomplish stealing back Dysus’s eye from Thalia?” Gimbal asked.

“You got a letter to meet with the House,” Grinfish pointed out. “Meet with Belfast tomorrow. Negotiate with him. Offer him information on the pirates and to help him fight Thalia and Black Bess. He will grant you some of his guards to help.”

“The pirates will definitely attack the city if we take Thalia’s eye,” I said.

He replied, “The pirates will attack the city if you don’t.”

I fell quiet.

“Thalia and her crew specialize in afflicting people with bad luck. You think it’s a coincidence you all happened to be in jail the same night? At the same time as her? She brought you all there to recruit you for the invasion.”

We all talked among ourselves for a moment, but came to an agreement quickly. Grinfish’s plan seemed to be the only viable way to get out of here.

“I’ll lead you through the catacombs to where the pirates will be lying in wait for ambush,” Grinfish promised. “I cannot go to the House with you, however. Act as if I’m not involved.”

“We got some kind of tracker on you so we know if you’re true to your word?” Nickel said.

Gimbal piped up, “I can make one tonight.”

Flashing an unsettling smile, Grinfish shrugged. “As long as it goes both ways.”


	8. Day 3, Part 3: Last Night At The Inn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valarr opens up about his past in the Underdark; Orre finally gets the fight he's been looking for. Meanwhile, Frankie tells a lie that may have lasting consequences.

We left Grinfish’s chambers after the plan was solidified.

My plans for the rest of the evening included getting some food, not touching an ounce of alcohol ever again, and going to bed. Teeth gave me a playful look as he slid me a glass of water and a tray of seasonal fruits, bread, and cheese. 

“What, no liquor?” He asked. 

“After last night? Fuck off, Teeth.” 

Gimbal had retired to her room to work on the tracker, which she conceptualized as some kind of modified sending stone. Frankie claimed the upgraded suite upstairs since she was the only one who could pay for it. Nickel and Valarr also retired to their rooms, and the gods only knew where Orre went. 

I carried my food and drink with me to my own room, where I promptly conjured my Unseen Servant to life and commanded it to begin pulling off my boots and top layer. It set my glass of water and food on the small desk in the corner and pulled my chair out for me. 

Taking a seat and pulling my knees up to my chest, I set my spell book against my thighs and began my nightly studies. The magical, invisible servant undid my braids and combed out my hair. Just as I began to settle in, I heard a knock at my door. 

“Come in,” I said, sending my servant to open it. 

The door swung open to reveal Valarr in the doorway. He stopped short as his eyes roamed over the coat folded and draped over the back of my chair, as well as my boots discarded on the floor. 

“Ah, I hope I’m not interrupting anything.” 

“No,” I laughed, closing my spell book. “Nothing but my own inane hobbies.” 

“I was hoping I might be able to speak with you privately.” 

“Of course. Is this about today?” 

He stepped into my room, and I motioned for the Unseen Servant to close the door behind him. It shut with a click. Valarr jumped slightly. 

“Don’t worry about that one. It won’t hurt you,” I told him. 

He smiled at me, wringing his hands. “You’ve been more kind and accepting to me today than I ever let myself hope.” 

I shook my head. “Valarr—” 

“Please. Just let me express my gratitude. I’ve lived in fear on the surface, always prepared to defend the fact that I was not born evil.” 

He pulled a necklace out of his shirt, a holy symbol of Eilistraee. 

“If you have any questions at all about my origins,” Valarr said, “I promise to be forthcoming.” 

I mulled it over for a moment. “What do you want me to know?” 

Valarr sighed and sat down on the bed. His fist tightened around his goddess’s symbol. “Like many drow, I was a man born into a cult of Lolth. Many of the men in my line had been... selected... for our features. I spent most of my adolescence trained to be appealing to the upper-class priestesses—” 

“Oh, gods, Valarr.” I reached out and put my hand on his knee. “You don’t... You don’t have to tell me all this. You don’t have to justify yourself to me.” 

“I had to tell someone,” he said, a deep well of sadness beneath his words. “I only got out by the grace of my goddess. Lead by her music and soft silver light, I found my way to the surface. I have firsthand witnessed Lolth’s influence and renounced her.” 

“Are there any other followers of Eilistraee?” I asked. 

“Many. But we are far apart and always on the run. We can’t let the priestesses catch up to us or they’d put down everything Eilistraee works towards — freeing all drow from Lolth’s influence to live in peace with the surface-dwellers.” 

Inhaling, I let out a long, slow breath between my teeth as I peered behind a curtain. I could see the flames of distant torches outside. 

“The mob’s still out there,” I said, then turned back to him. “But don’t worry about that, Valarr. None of us are gonna let them hurt you.” 

He shrugged, and with a mischievous smile, added. “It’s fine. I did steal my mother’s glamour, after all.” 

With a moment of concentration, Valarr summoned his wood elf disguise back onto himself. 

“Someday, you’ll have no use for that anymore,” I told him. 

“I hope so.” 

Just then, we heard a distant crash. Valarr and I looked at one another. Dismissing my Unseen Servant, I grabbed my rapier and ran to the front of the bar. Valarr wasn’t far behind. 

Surrounded by hunks of splintered wood, Orre lay prone in the middle of a table he’d broken in half. I looked up. The balcony where he’d fallen was completely broken off. It looked like he’d been thrown at a high speed. Struggling to get up from the debris, the earth genasi drew his sword as he stumbled to his feet. 

I heard the metallic jingling of delicate jewelry and the creak of soft bare feet on wooden steps. Valarr and I turned, then backed up to make way for Dysus. The old Medusa had taken off her cloak completely. She was tall and unearthly slender, with a long flowing skirt and so many draped, dangling necklaces of precious metal they covered her rail-thin torso. The snakes above her head writhed as she descended the staircase, smiling. 

“Up,” she commanded, pinching the end of her dagger and stretching it to a full-length rapier. 

The same magic as Grinfish, I noted. 

Valarr grabbed me and pushed me to the ground, shielding me as Dysus and Orre clashed. Patrons scattered. Metal clanged against metal, and sparks flew. Orre fought wildly with any and all weapons at his disposal, but he was heavy and tough, built to withstand. Dysus, on the other hand, was so fast she wove easily out of Orre’s path. The Medusa landed hit after hit. 

Teeth grabbed a table that rolled near the bar and pulled it over top of him like a shield, huddling underneath it. 

Dysus wasn’t targeting anyone but Orre; in fact, the two appeared to be enjoying their brawl. I slipped along the wall and motioned for Valarr to follow me. We snuck along the outside of the tavern, occasionally ducking to avoid some flying plate or plank of wood, before we got to the front of the bar. A pair of goliaths dressed like trackers were pressed against the wall, simultaneously keeping an eye on both the fight and on something outside. 

“Does this happen often?” I asked them. 

“No,” one said. “Dysus hasn’t picked up a blade in awhile.” 

The other one, who was focused on what was happening outside, elbowed his companion. “Shh. I’m trying to read the human girl’s lips.” 

Valarr squinted at that, then stood on his tiptoes to see better out the window past the goliath. He gasped and his eyes widened. “Shit!” 

“What? I— Oh.” I peeked outside to see Frankie addressing the mob. “Valarr, wait!” 

I had to run to block him from opening the front door. We exchanged a long look. A dagger flew through the air, and we both ducked just in time for it to embed itself in the door. 

“I’ll go outside first,” I told him. “Stay behind me.” 

Valarr relented, but kept an eye on the raging fight between Orre and Dysus. 

A wave of sound washed over me as I opened the door. Drü, Dysus’s hobgoblin bouncer, and several other bugbear guards stood with weapons drawn and blocked the mob from the inn. Every time someone ventured too close, Drü or one of his lackeys flung them away. 

Frankie was speaking. “I was the girl you all saw taken by the drow earlier. I want you to know that I am safe. He wasn’t kidnapping me! He wouldn’t hurt anyone. That drow is my guardian and traveling companion.” 

There were murmurs of dissent in the crowd as she spoke. A few townsfolk tried to rush the guards but were dispatched easily. I held the door open and waved Valarr out. Still disguised as a wood elf, he squeezed outside. No one appeared to recognize him. 

Some of the mob believed Frankie. They extinguished their torches and left. The more adamant townsfolk became rowdy, shouting over her. 

Desperate, Frankie blurted, “I, the Lady Francesca Landon, will be performing tomorrow evening at the Smiling Lady. Please attend as I perform a song of my friend’s heroism!” 

There was another outbreak of murmurs in the crowd. Many more people began to break away from the mob. Those left were easily overwhelmed by Drü and his guards. Frankie was pushed back towards the entrance; Valarr threw a protective arm around her. I guarded her other side as we made our way back into the Lazy Eye. 

Orre and Dysus’s fight had apparently ended. A few patrons, including Nickel, stuck around to help Teeth piece the broken tables back together and clean up the mess. Orre was alive but looking quite worse for wear. Still, he wore a broad grin on his face. The genasi had finally gotten his competition. 

As we tidied up and retired to our rooms, I made a mental note to tell Grinfish we had a new complication; Frankie spread a rumor she’d be performing at the House the day we were scheduled to meet with Belfast. That was a problem for tomorrow, I reasoned, and fell face first into my bed.


	9. Day 4, Part 1: Complications

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piscín begins showing troubling and mysterious symptoms as the party prepares to face Belfast.

In my trance that night, visions rose to the surface. These dreams were disjointed, a patchwork quilt of memories. I found myself in a ballroom. The architecture looked ancient and elven, but sometimes when I glanced down a hallway, I recognized the corridors of the palace in the mountains of Avadra. I wore the dress I’d worn to the Avadran ball only a year before, long-sleeved and emerald-green.

I sensed a presence near me in the ballroom, a man. I looked around for him. “Pascal?”

The skin underneath my Ring of Mind-Shielding itched.

A hand settled on my shoulder from behind. An unfamiliar voice spoke. “Young lady.”

There was a rush of several images — the flash of silver scales, the shelves of a library lined with handwritten journals. I saw myself bleeding out on the ground. A blue elf with black, frostbitten fingertips and white eyes fell to their knees beside me. They called me “Liadan.”

I awoke with a gasp. My ears rang. I felt a pressure in them like a storm front was sweeping over the Bay, but my window was bright with sunlight.

I sat up and swallowed to relieve the tension in my ears. After a small pop, the pressure faded. I looked over to where my rapier sat on my desk. The hilt, ancient and inlaid with jewels, was an heirloom in my family, passed down from Bladesinger to Bladesinger.

I picked up the weapon and ran an admiring hand over the blade. Today was the day, I thought. Go to the Smiling Lady. Talk to Belfast. Was it a trap? Would I survive until evening? I sighed. This plan was our only shot. The only other option was to stay in the inn until the pirates invaded, and I wasn’t about to let a city full of innocent people die.

That surprised me. I hadn’t realized why I was sticking around in the city. At any time, I could have taken my chances with the underground caves and made my escape, but this was bigger than me. This was about the families who’d made the Golden Bay their home. This was about protecting the city from a war between two goddesses.

I got dressed and sheathed my rapier at my side.

As I walked through the hallway, I heard Drü speaking to someone else at the doorway to the dining area. They spoke in hushed voices, but not quietly enough for my ears to miss words.

“No way it’s the same guy,” Drü said.

“Dunno who else it would be,” the other person, a lizardfolk, replied. “He stopped in a dive bar down by the docks, lots of burly sailors. Mouthed off ‘til five of ‘em had enough with his attitude, but they didn’t even have time to jump him.”

“Injuries?”

“Black eyes, broken bones. No puncture wounds.”

“That’s him, all right,” Drü sighed. “Damn, I really thought I got him last time.”

I cleared my throat. The two sent me a sideways look, then quieted and moved out of the way. As I passed, the lizardfolk watched me. He hissed, “You’re gonna get in trouble one o’ these days, girly.”

“Already am, but thanks,” I said.

Orre, Grinfish, Nickel, and Gimbal were at a table speaking to one another. Gimbal, looking quite sleep-deprived, handed a stone with a thumb-shaped depression at its center to Grinfish. When I approached, she waved.

“Oh, good, you’re up.” The artificer waved a second, identical stone at me. “I finished the tracker stones. Would you like to try it?”

I took the stone and pressed my thumb into the depression. Suddenly, I became highly conscious and aware of Grinfish’s presence at the table, even when I looked away.

“It works,” I said.

“Would you like to try it, Orre?” Gimbal asked.

The genasi shook his head. “No magic.”

“Oh, by the way,” I said, taking a seat, “We have a slight problem. Frankie was outside trying to calm down the mob last night. She told them she was performing at the casino today.”

I watched Grinfish consider this for a moment. Then, he replied, “This could work to our advantage. If Frankie is able to sway the favor of the crowd, the people of the city will trust you, and you will be able to move about more freely.”

“Seems simple enough,” Nickel said. “We go to the House, Frankie performs, we tell Belfast the truth about the pirates havin’ it out for us, we offer our help, then we move right along to the tunnels to take out the pirates with Belfast’s guards.”

“There may be a monster down there, too,” Orre said.

“Strange beasts come out of the tunnels sometimes, but they have served me well,” Grinfish told him dismissively. “Diplomacy is a weak point for me, so I encourage you to go to the House without me. Don’t mention me by name. Nobody seems to trust when I’m involved, you see.”

Valarr emerged from his room, fully clad in his paladin garb but wearing his wood elf glamour again. Shortly after, Frankie came skipping down the stairs.

“I slept with my first boy!” She announced cheerfully.

Valarr stared at Frankie, then over at Grinfish. Both of them froze in shock for a moment.

“The lady took the bed,” Grinfish managed at long last. “I slept on the floor.”

I gave Frankie a curious look. How sheltered was this woman back at her family home? Valarr caught my eye and shook his head, making a “Don’t say anything” motion.

“My dear Frankie, I have a favor to ask of you. When you perform Valarr’s story tonight at the Smiling Lady, please do not mention me,” The fish said.

Frankie scowled. “But I want to tell everyone about our love!”

“The crowd must trust Valarr,” he reiterated.

I took her aside. “Frankie, think of it like this. You know how every great love story is taboo? It’s like forbidden love. For now, your and Grinfish’s love must be a secret, and someday it will be a grand love story. Right now, though, it’s still building.”

“Oh!” Frankie nodded enthusiastically. “I like the building.”

The group continued to discuss tactics we could use to persuade Belfast to join our cause, such as mentioning Thalia’s involvement by name and trying to recall everything she’d said to us in the jail only a few days prior. While the others talked, I waved Valarr aside.

“What do you know of the Transcendence?” I asked.

He hesitated. “I confess I’m not familiar with the term.”

“Up here, elves believe in reincarnation. For the first few decades of our lives, we have some memories of our past life, but they fade,” I told him. “Then, older elves — typically once we pass the age of 600 or so — begin to recall their past life memories. We call this Transcendence.”

“That’s fascinating,” Valarr said. “I— I want to know more about life up here.”

“You will. I’ll tell you. But the reason I’m saying this is because, for some reason, I think I had some memories come back last night.”

A look of confusion, then understanding, flashed across his face. “But you’re my age.”

“I know. That’s the problem. I don’t know what to do about it or if anything could be done, but I guess I...” I smiled. “I had to tell someone.”

“Okay, is everybody ready to go?” Nickel boomed, clapping his hands together.

Grinfish pocketed the tracker stone and slipped over the bar counter, disappearing into what I can only assume is some kind of hidden trap door. No wonder Teeth was so insistent on patrons staying on the right side of the bar.

The rest of us got our equipment together and double-checked everything. The other tracker stone ended up in my possession. Once we were satisfied, we took a deep breath and trailed outside. We left before the sun rose, so Valarr seemed quite comfortable with the level of light as we picked our way through relatively empty streets; only a few pedestrians meandered to and fro past us.

“Wait a second,” Frankie interrupted, stopping cold. Then she whirled and pointed at me. “How come she gets the stone that lets us keep track of Grinfish?”

I did not need this. “Frankie, I am just holding onto the stone for safe-keeping, and if you want to check in with Grinfish—”

“You have a thing I don’t have and I want it!”

I wasn’t sure how to respond when she threw herself onto the ground like a toddler having a tearful little fit. The other party members circled around, attempting to persuade her and offer alternate solutions, but Frankie continued to be disagreeable. But just as I got to the breaking point of sheer impatience, I heard a whistle and a resounding _THWAP_.

I turned to see Valarr reaching to a crossbow bolt embedded in the shoulder of his armor. He pulled it out, looked at the bolt, then looked up at me. The whole group turned to look in the direction of the shot. At the end of the road, an angry knot of townsfolk stood banded together. We heard rustling behind us and realized we’d been cornered.

Glancing over the mob, I recognized some of the faces in the crowd the previous evening. Some of them still bore the bruises of dealing with Drü. We readied our weapons.


	10. Day 4, Part 2: Street Fight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group defends themselves against both an angry mob and the followers of Beshaba as they make their way to the casino.

The mob rushed us. Orre and I pushed to one side to hold them off from Valarr. Nickel, Gimbal, and Ellie confronted the other. Frankie withdrew to the center, but her magic pulsed through the air to protect and strengthen us.

A hefty, muscular man bent a metal pipe over Orre’s head. The earth genasi left a gash in him with his greatsword.

“Orre, don’t kill people!” I shouted. Another citizen smacked me with a club, and I turned to drive them back with a few strikes of my rapier.

Looking between me and the man lying at his feet, Orre nodded reluctantly.

I summoned the power of the Bladesong from deep within me. A keening melody followed me as my movements became faster, my senses sharper. I created three illusory duplicates of myself to disorient my attackers. Several of them swung at me and missed; I took care of them with a few swings of my blade.

I felt a buzzing in my ears and looked up. The antlered priests Valarr had seen stood on the rooftops, looking down on us. They raised their staves and began to fling magic at us even as we dealt with the mob.

Four townsfolk cornered Orre, Valarr, and me. I matched their strikes with two slashes of my rapier for each one of their own. Even as we dispatched of the civilians easily, purple lightning and orbs of sickly green light fell on us from above. I managed to break through the ring of our assailants and threw a bolt of lightning at the priests on the rooftops. Nickel followed my spell by flinging meteors their way.

Someone came up behind me, but Ellie swooped to gouge him with her claws. Gimbal yelled across the square, “Ellie, what did I tell you? No killing!”

The griffin whined.

Frankie took that moment to send out a blast of powerful magic that froze the civilians in their tracks. The mob hesitated, shaken. We took their pause as an opportunity to attack full force. Our party swept through the crowd, knocking several of our attackers unconscious.

The ground shook underneath us as Gimbal threw explosive after explosive at the edges of the fight in an attempt to scare them away without any more violence. Ellie chased after the townsfolk, claws outstretched.

Nickel managed to take out several of the priests atop the roof. Only one remained. Desperate, the priest drew back their scepter and threw it down to the battlefield like a spear. It stuck in the center of the street.

Nickel and I both attempted to control the shockwave that burst forth from it with Counterspell, but our magic fizzled out against its force. I managed to hold my ground; my companions were knocked flat. When the dust cleared, I looked to the rooftop. The priest was gone.

It was over. The street was littered with the mostly-unconscious bodies of the mob, though some had died in the chaos. The other members of our party got to their feet. Valarr began tending to the wounds of our allies.

Orre leaped nearly the full height of the building next to us, grabbed onto the siding, and climbed the rest of the way to see what happened to the remaining priest. He shouted off the rooftop, “They found me! The Efreet are upon us! The plane of fire!”

I squinted up at him. He seemed very convinced of the truth of his statement, but I also know better than to trust Orre’s sense.

“So, we are being attacked by fire gods?” Frankie asked.

Orre yelled, “Worse than gods!”

Nickel looked at me and shook his head wordlessly.

After investigating the exit of the antlered priest, Orre dropped back down to the ground, then leaped to the roof of the other building to find the burned body of the other. I saw him pick up the withered husk left behind, only for him to throw the corpse over the edge of the building. I cringed and stepped back as the body hit the ground. Its parts shattered into pieces.

I yelled in shock. “ORRE! Don’t DO that!”

From above, his distant voice called, “You will know what this is better than I do.”

We hesitantly crowded around the fragmented body, inspecting it, when Orre dropped down beside us.

“The servants of the Efreet are already here in the city,” he insisted.

“They’re not servants of the Efreet,” Valarr told him, clearly vexed. “They have the antlers of followers of Beshaba.”

“There are definitely Efreet afoot!”

Frankie began to panic. “I’m with a water elemental! I can’t go against a fire god!”

Valarr and I exchanged tired expressions, and he nodded towards the head of the corpse. We approached it together and crouched down. All of a sudden, the head sprang back to life with a whistling, hoarse intake of breath. We both screamed.

“I did a thing!” said Frankie, directly behind us.

“What did you do?” I cried.

Frankie plopped down onto the ground next to the head. “It’ll be fine. He’ll tell us everything.”

Valarr and I backed up, and I shot him a glare – _Why does Frankie of all people know spells for speaking to the dead?_ – but we gave her the space and silence she needed to commune with the head.

“Dear fire god!” Frankie shouted at the head, loudly.

“It is not a fire god,” Valarr corrected. “Ask about Beshaba.”

“Why don’t YOU ask about Bee-sha-bu?”

Crouching beside Frankie, the drow addressed the head directly in a normal tone, “Why are you after us?”

The head responded, with an airy exhalation, “You did not join.”

“What do you know about Grinfish?” Frankie asked. I rolled my eyes.

“The fish?” The head laughed hoarsely. “What do you know about him?”

“He’s a sea god, right?”

It cackled and coughed in amusement. “Thalia hunts for him. The old Medusa… has him. He must serve her, and he must die for it.”

Frankie made distressed noises at this. Next to me, I heard Valarr slowly unsheathe his silver sword from its resting place at his side.

“Does Grinfish have another woman?” Frankie questioned further.

I commanded, “Valarr, kill it.”

On my word, the paladin drove the silver blade through the spellcaster’s fallen head, killing what remained of its power. I grabbed Frankie by the arm and pulled her to her feet, hastily reassuring her that Grinfish loved only her and that the antlered caster had been messing with her.

“Grinfish can’t die,” Frankie wept, inconsolable.

“We aren’t going to let that happen,” I said. “That’s why we’re going to the House.”

Behind us, Nickel and Gimbal looked over the scepter left behind by the priest of Beshaba. Nickel appeared displeased. He used his stone sorcery to bury the scepter deep underground. A ways away, Orre gently propped the unconscious townsfolk against a building to give them time to recover, then laid out the few that had died in the chaos.

“Definitely a religious carving imbued with divine power. Bad luck,” Gimbal told us, gesturing towards the spot where the earth had closed up over the staff.

“Don’t need that when we’re getting ready to go to a casino,” Nickel said.

We cut through various side streets until we came to a man-made plateau that overlooked the bay. The area was patrolled by a force of quite intimidating-looking guards, resplendent in decorative swirls of chain mail. In the midst of these guards stood a building, wreathed in gaudy gold accents and jewel-toned geometric angles. There it was – the House, the Smiling Lady.

Frankie took it upon herself to approach one of the guards, a towering Dragonborn in the well-dressed finery of his position. She cozied up to him, twirling her golden locks and offering a warm smile that showed off her deep dimples.

“Hi, there. I’m supposed to be in here tonight,” She told him cheerfully. “I’m royalty, you know, and these are my servants.”

The Dragonborn stared at her for a moment, then held up his hand cautiously. His eyes swept over us. I saw a flash of recognition on his face. The Dragonborn said into his hand, “Are you seeing this? … Yeah.”

Then, after a moment’s pause, the guard held his other arm out to hold open the door for us. He let out what seemed to be a sigh of resignation. “Right this way. Welcome to the Smiling Lady.”

“Thank you,” Frankie said, with a bouncing curtsy.

Our group funneled into the casino cautiously. I could feel the anxiety emanating off of my teammates as we walked inside, even as we were swallowed up in the excitement and the din of the interior.

High ceilings greeted us. Various tables stretched out all the way to the stage at the far side of the room. Gamblers and members of the wealthy elite sat all around us, dressed in sophisticated clothing and jewelry. Bartenders flourished with fancy tricks behind the high-end bar as servers with trays of drinks and hors d’oeuvres maneuvered around the tables. Everywhere around us were statues of a halfling woman with long blonde curls spilling over her shoulders and wearing the regalia of a dancer, grinning from ear to ear — Tymora.

Covered in blood from the mob fight and surrounded by an eclectic crew of ruffians, I suddenly realized we were entirely out of place in such a well-to-do facility. I glanced around and checked to see if we were being watched by any prying eyes. Most patrons appeared to not even give us the time of day. As we advanced, more and more eyes turned to look at us.

Or, rather, behind us.

I noticed, too late, the sound of quick footsteps approaching. A voice said, with an almost mocking tone, “Welcome, Lady Landon and company. How ya doin’?”


	11. Day 4, Part 3: Belfast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While trying to talk their way into Belfast's good graces, the party finds they're not quite as clever or persuasive as they like to think they are.

“ _The tunnels below the bay hold some kind of magical crossroads the likes of which I’ve never seen before. Knowing such an incredible source of power has fallen into the clutches of some no-name merchant without a pedigree boils my blood_.”

— Found among the notes of the Crown’s head adviser

I turned around as our group was suddenly surrounded by rough-looking bodyguards, only to be confronted by a particularly well-kept halfling man. He appeared to be not quite middle-aged, but also someone who took care of his appearance, with dark hair trimmed short and finely-made clothing. Frankie started to walk away from our group, but one of the bodyguards grabbed her and corralled her back in with the rest of us.

Barely keeping his cool, the halfling gritted his teeth in a furious smile and turned to his crew. “Will somebody go get Tirry? Somebody go get Tirry for the girl. The rest of you,” He fixed his eyes on our party, “Come with me.”

Glancing at one another, we had no choice but to follow the halfling. His guards ushered us forcefully behind him to a private alcove hidden from the rest of the casino.

As we walked into the room, the halfling stopped Frankie in the doorway and yelled, “Somebody get her to Tirry since she has been… advertised.”

One of the guards escorted Frankie outside, and the door was shut behind them.

“By the way,” The halfling waggled his finger at us as he turned to survey the room, “It would be nice if you asked about that next time. But you promised a performance, and now there’s a crowd, so we’ll give them a performance.”

Instead of admonishing us further, the halfling took a seat at the table. The room was ringed with silent but observant Goliaths. I somehow felt less afraid of them than of the halfling himself.

He notably was dressed in fine clothes, but not the traditional flamboyance of nobility or aristocracy — more like the garments of the mercantile class. However, his garb was more well-made than your typical merchant, using carefully-curated textures and fabrics. He wore no jewelry. This halfling was both business and luxury, an enigma of contradictions.

I also got the feeling, even as his dark eyes rested heavily and unblinking on us, he was acutely aware of everything else going on around him, and the sheer weight and scale of how much control this one individual held over this facility overwhelmed me.

This was Belfast, the owner of the Smiling Lady, essentially the acting ruler of the Golden Bay. The local government here could not touch this man.

“So is she all you brought me today? Hm?” Belfast asked.

“We got your request for a meeting from the herald yesterday,” I ventured, producing the decree from my messenger bag.

“So, you got my message askin’ you to come talk and thought that entitled you to my stage.”

Gimbal held up her hands. “Oh, no, not at all, sir.”

Valarr spoke up, “We had a run-in with Beshaba’s followers and would like to offer you our help in taking out the pirates.”

“Oh? Wow.” Belfast looked amused, though the sharp attentiveness to his features didn’t ease. “So, they help you out of jail, they try to be all nice, help you stay out of jail, then they rough you up a bit and now suddenly you don’t want to be friends anymore.”

“They gave us the opportunity to join them,” Valarr explained, “We refused. We left. We have no desire to join the pirates. They attacked and attempted to kill us, so we came here.”

Instead of responding to Valarr’s explanation, Belfast said, “I heard y’all been runnin’ around with that fish.”

“What fish?” Gimbal asked, stone-faced.

The halfling stretched his face in an eerie smile, then pointed at his own face. “This guy.”

“Well, he’s not a pirate, and nobody seems to like him,” Nickel mused casually.

“I don’t like him,” Belfast said. “Do you?”

We shook our heads. I was just glad Frankie was not present.

Belfast took a long, slow breath and let it out. “Well, I am going to need some, uh, more information.”

“Like?” Gimbal prompted.

“Well — Cheater — what you want from me,” The halfling shot back.

Gimbal narrowed her eyes. “Not sure that I like that. Sorry I beat your game.”

“Can I get a record?” Belfast yelled over his shoulder, snapping his fingers. As if by magic, a large book appeared, and he began flipping through the pages. “Gimbal, Gimbal, Gimbal… Yeah, caught red-handed counting cards. How’s that fun for anybody, huh?”

“I don’t see the problem with that. Nobody ever told me it was wrong.”

“I’m sick of hearing from you.”

Caught off guard, she closed her mouth and sat back in her chair.

“All of you,” Belfast paused as he looked from face to face, “Have cheated me in the past. You’ve cheated my people, or fucked with my rules. There is a very simple rule in this town that says you should be dead. And yet you came back in here after you managed to get away. I gotta know what you’re up to. Help me help you.”

“We wouldn’t come back if we didn’t want to help you with the pirates,” Valarr said. “They’re hunting us down. We want to help stop them.”

Valarr went on to explain we’d been hiding out in the city and needed not only our pardons, but also a better reputation so we could safely leave the city after defeating the pirates.

“Neat. How you gonna do that?”

“We know where the pirates are going to be in the tunnels.”

Belfast inhaled sharply. “So you got ’em in the tunnels.”

“If we go down there, they will follow us, and we can lay a trap for them.”

“What do you have that they want?”

“They just want us!”

“Here is the fact of the matter,” I spoke up, finally, “Thalia was in that prison when all of us were there. She was not supposed to be in there. We don’t know why we were all put in there with her that night. For some reason, they want us.”

Belfast squinted at me and made an affirmative “huh” sound. I wasn’t sure if that meant he was satisfied with my answer, but instead of speaking, he looked from face to face around the room.

“So what’s the bard for? Why’s she want up on that stage?”

“To clear Valarr’s reputation.”

Belfast squinted at the paladin, who was wearing his wood elf glamour, and grinned. “Ah. So that was you last night. We got a real eclectic group here, huh? No wonder Thalia wanted you on her side.

“But I need something from you besides just your help,” He continued. “What do you have to offer as collateral? I need to know you’ll bring my fellas back.”

We fell quiet. All of us looked around the room to one another.

The halfling chuckled low under his breath. “All right, then. How about I give you some time to think about it? Go out, get some drinks, mingle a bit. Watch the show. Then, we meet back up here when the Lady Landon is done with her performance.”

The goliath guards in the room grabbed us by the nape of the neck and threw us out.

Noise invaded my senses as we were thrust from Belfast’s silent office into the main hall. The tables by the stage were filling up with guests. A few dancers in matching costumes and blonde wigs made their way through the crowd, twirling and collecting tips. I saw no sign of Frankie.

“We should clean up,” I said, casting Seeming over us to hide the blood and dirt from the mob fight.

Orre screamed and put his hands to the changed patches on his body. I added a little extra to my disguise, granting myself a more appropriate dress for the venue.

“I...” Valarr put a hand to his forehead. “I’m going to go to a table and get a drink.”

Orre said, “We are going to die. We must start a riot.”

All at once, the entire group yelled, “NO!”

The genasi scowled and slunk off to inspect the perimeter of the building. A few guards trailed a safe distance behind, keeping a close eye on him. I took the opportunity to pull out the tracker stone. With the press of my thumb, I sensed Grinfish’s presence far underground.

“He’s in the tunnels, traveling.” I kept my voice low.

Nickel nodded. “From now on, as long as we’re in here, wait ‘til we ask and give a thumbs up.”

“Of course.”

The rest of us went to settle at a table within view of the stage. I was starting to fill up with doubts about whether we could pull this off. What could we possibly offer as collateral? I had nothing on me besides my heirloom sword, which I needed for the battle and had no significance to the others. I wondered if there was something else we could offer him, perhaps some information, that would lead him to trust us more. In the meantime, I took a seat at the table next to Valarr.


	12. Day 4, Part 4: Intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As the group tries to figure out how they'll leave the casino in one piece, Piscín takes a big risk.

The Smiling Lady possessed an elegance unlike most other establishments in which I had set foot. With great floor-to-ceiling windows through which light spilled, the focal point of the main hall was its great stage. There were already some performances happening. Musicians played, and dancing bards made their ways around the tables of the affluent and powerful nearer to the stage. Some couples were splitting off from the main hall to wander into the wings, where other festivities and ballroom dances were occurring.

I had not been sitting long when a young halfling waiter appeared at our table with a plate of hors d’oeuvres, tinkling champagne flutes, and a bright smile.

“Pass some time before the show, ma’am?” He asked.

He proceeded to rattle off a long list of wines, tacking on a recommendation for a sparkling white at the end. I thanked him, took his suggestion, and asked for something other than one of the more expensive varietals.

“Oh, no, ma’am,” the waiter told me. “Your first drink is on the House, and you have a second on the way with the compliments of one of our dancers.”

Taken aback, I accepted the glass he handed to me. “Oh, thank you very much.”

He departed, and I perused the room as I took a sip of my first drink.

A dancer wound her way through the crowd towards our table. Most of the dancers stuck together, at least in groups of two or three, but this particular bard danced skillfully and effortlessly by herself. She wore a unique costume and no wig, instead opting to use her natural blonde curls. I felt a power from her I didn’t see in the others. Somehow, I got the feeling she was the dancer that paid for my second drink.

Another patron tipped her five gold coins, and she struck a pose and tossed them in the air; the coins turned into golden lights and rained down around the patron.

When the waiter returned to hand my second drink to me, I gave him a few coins and asked him to give her a tip on my behalf. “And wish her well during the performance for me — not that she needs my help to steal the show.”

The server turned and noted the dancer I referred to, giving a small “OH!” of recognition. I caught her eye and raised my glass. She winked. With a sigh, I turned back to my drink and resisted the urge to go speak with her. _Maybe under different circumstances._

Valarr, who left the table in search of a wash room, returned and flashed a smile. “Don’t I look underdressed compared to you?”

“Just magic,” I told him, then gestured at my glass. “Somehow, this is my second drink without spending a copper.”

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

I gave him a wry look. “What are you saying?”

He just raised an eyebrow with a sly smile and changed the topic.

“I asked around about what Francesca’s up to,” Valarr continued. “Apparently she is in the midst of offering me as a prize for whichever dancer can make her look the best.”

Snorting wine up my nose ever-so-gracefully, I covered my mouth with one hand and coughed as quietly as I could manage.

I finished off the glass, and a pleasant haze settled over me. It was different than being tipsy. I felt more aware, more alert. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something familiar. I turned. One of the goliath trackers from last night at the Lazy Eye was walking towards the entrance.

“Excuse me,” I said absently, getting out of my chair and picking up my pace to follow after him. I waved my hand to get the tracker’s attention. “Hey! You!”

When the goliath saw me, he slipped into a nearby crowd and attempted to blend in. This proved ineffective. He took off towards the front doors at a full sprint. I scowled.

Instead of trying to teleport after him, I whirled and looked in the direction he’d come from. An incredibly lucky catch gave me my answer. For only a split second, I saw Belfast seated at a nearby table, reading. He was visible for only a moment before a glamour closed around him. The illusion of two human nobles took his place.

The illusion was impressive. The nobles sipped disdainfully on wine without paying attention to the goings-on in the casino. I circled them at a wide berth, allowing myself to look like I was meandering about the Smiling Lady and admiring its views. Then, when the time felt right, I slipped closer.

“Regulars, I presume?” I asked the nobles. “The two of you look rather bored for patrons of this lovely establishment. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten used to the festivities.”

One of the nobles glanced up at me, scowling. “Waiting on a friend.”

“There’s always one, you know,” the other said. “Never able to come through on their promises.”

I laughed coyly, holding a hand over my mouth. “Sounds like you need better friends. What kind of companion keeps you waiting?”

Truly, as a practitioner of magic, I was impressed by the detail of Belfast’s illusion. He puppeteered the two humans as if they were real. They interacted with one another seamlessly and naturally. The one sipping on his drink, however, kept glancing away from the table even as the other focused all his attention on our conversation.

“Hopefully he’ll be here for the performance,” the first responded. “Is it true that Francesca Landon washed up on the Bay and wooed a stronghold of monsters into song?”

“I hear she charmed the Medusa like a snake,” The other one added in amusement.

“You know, she really is Francesca Landon,” I informed them, tracing the rim of my glass with one finger. “I happened to be at that bar, in fact. The Medusa is tough to impress, but she made enough in tips alone to buy the whole tavern several rounds.”

I noted half of the illusion’s wandering gaze, glancing in the direction of his eyes even as I smiled amicably. I spotted an overhanging box balcony, similar to one like you would see in an opera house. A single woman sat alone in the structure.

“Speaking of the inn, however,” I continued, “I couldn’t help but notice your friend the goliath. Not that it’s any of my business, but he was a patron at the tavern last night. What business do two human nobles have with a goliath tracker?”

Both humans straightened, mirrored one another’s expressions as they turned to me, then laughed in eerie unison. I inhaled sharply and took a step backwards.

“Boy, what a pair of eyes on this one. No wonder you’ve got Thalia’s attention,” They both chuckled darkly. “I give you a chance to settle in and take a break, but you find me anyway. Jeez.”

I clenched my teeth, fighting to keep my composure.

“Considering your proposal for collateral, I’m finding it rather difficult to relax,” I told him, even as Belfast remained in his illusory forms. “I’d rather have my debts paid off.”

Taking a sip from my drink, I continued, “I’m just a nomad, and my companions don’t have much in the way of material wealth, either. What do a bunch of nobodies have to offer a man who has everything?”

The former human in the illusion drummed his fingers on the table, while the other continued to sip from his wine glass.

“Maybe,” I said, tilting my head to the side in thought, “I could give you a shot at the fish.”

Both humans looked at one another, raising their eyebrows. One snapped his fingers, and three separate waiters and a dancer were immediately beside us. The second human stood to speak with them quietly, while the first leaned in to address me.

“You know, I hear the old Medusa feels the same way. No debt, no favors.” Without taking his eyes off me, he lifted his wine glass. It was filled by one of the waiters. “Funny thing, I’ve never seen her. Never even heard the name ‘Dysus’ until she sent a guy to buy Teeth offa my staff.”

One of the other waitstaff approached our table with a platter of chilled fruits. I recognized some of the ways the fruits were prepared and presented; this was traditional moon elf fare. The “human” to whom I was speaking took a long, slow swig from his glass.

“The fish is a loser. No cash, no friends, no name. Thalia hates him. She and everyone else. Everybody but Dysus.”

He took a moment to pop a grape into his mouth, then continued, “That’s what’s got me about him. Dysus. Nobody won’t say shit about her without turnin’ up dead. So, I wanna know about the Medusa sittin’ on my front lawn. Otherwise, I have a few ideas floating on your group’s collateral.”

Gesturing for me to have a bite, he picked up a peach and flicked a leaf off its skin.

“But of course,” Belfast said, “That’s talk for after the show. You still got your time.”

I eyed him, accepting one of the fruits off the platter and taking a bite. “The old Medusa has been good to us these past few days, as I’m sure you know, considering you sent a messenger to the inn.

“I do know, however, a few things she keeps up in her hoard, as well as a bit of bad blood between her and Thalia.” I shrugged and rose from my seat. “But as you said, that’s talk for after the show. You’ve been most gracious to me. Enjoy the performance, sir.”

“Sure hope I do,” he replied, nonchalantly popping another grape into his mouth. “I’ll be in touch.”

I walked away from him feeling like I’d just made a deal with a devil.


	13. Day 4, Part 5: Performance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frankie enjoys her five minutes of fame. However, the party is more concerned about Belfast.

“ _It’s pretty odd, if I say so myself. Ever since that halfling showed up the city’s been growing like a weed. We couldn’t even get buildings to stay up before. You know, hurricanes, sink holes, disease brought over on ships. But I ain’t complaining. People are happy here now. We have money. The sun is out._ ”

— Personal letter lost in the mail at one of the Golden Bay’s post offices

Feeling ill, I wandered back to the table. Orre had gathered the group and was, for once, speaking a great deal of sense.

“We cannot leave this place unless Belfast allows it,” He said. “There are guards both in and out, and if we do not bring enough additional soldiers to the cave with us, we will be slaughtered by the pirates. We need an escape plan. Once we are free and able to flee to the tunnels, Belfast’s guards may follow us.”

Valarr blinked. “That is, shockingly, a fair assessment.”

“The walls are crafted from stonework. We have a stone mage,” The earth genasi continued, gesturing to Nickel.

The Warforged touched his head like he was tipping a hat.

“I think we may want to wait. Belfast is out here with us behind a glamour,” I told them. “I stumbled across him earlier. He’s closer than you think.”

“That was your second drink, yeah?” Nickel asked. “If you’re the only one what can see ‘im, best keep your wits about ya.”

“It is best not to drink the poison,” Orre agreed.

Gimbal started. “What poison, Orre?”

“They put poison in the drinks to prevent overindulgence,” he said. “Gladiators must be alert for combat.”

I gave him a long, considering look. “Orre, I don’t know what they did to you where you come from, but it wasn’t anything good.”

“This place,” he said, hesitating, “is strange.”

Valarr nodded emphatically.

“Still! We need an exit plan. Even if we wait, we must have a plan if something goes wrong.”

Gimbal asked, “Who are you and what have you done with Orre?”

The genasi looked miffed. “I can plan battles. That’s what I do.”

“In any case, we’ll need that bard if we wanna leave this place. I also vote we stick around,” Nickel chimed in.

The torches in the Smiling Lady began to dim. We fluttered nervously around the table as other patrons returned to their seats. I threw a look back at the table where Belfast had been sitting, but his seat was empty.

Gimbal produced a healing draught from her bag and nodded at those of us who’d been wounded in the earlier battle. All of us took our seats and wordlessly passed the potion from person to person. None of us knew what was about to happen, but we wanted to be ready.

The tall floor-to-ceiling windows in the casino darkened. I straightened and looked around, realizing they were not windows at all, but illusions evoking daylight. Servers silently slid platters of food and drinks in front of patrons at each table, then disappeared from the main hall. Others in the crowd tittered excitedly behind fans, whispering to one another.

The faint swelling of music arose from the orchestral pit in front of the stage, giving way to a solo drum performance. Deep, tribal drumbeats pounded the air, vibrating deep in my chest. A single light danced on the stage, followed by another. I could now see the lights were two points of fire on either end of a staff held by a tiefling woman. Her hair was long and silver, her horns forming the shape of a circlet around her head. She flicked her other wrist and another flaming staff appeared. Whirling to the drumbeat, the tiefling dancer seemed to separate into two identical dancers, mirroring one another’s movements onstage. The crowd gasped and murmured.

Then, both images collapsed into one another in a plume of flame. The magical fire swept out over the crowd, warming but not burning our faces, and suddenly the whole room was ringed by a burst of glittering dust. As it settled, an entire troupe of dancers dressed in Tymora regalia danced all around us in unison to the drumbeat. Most of the dancers were halflings, but there was an eclectic mix of peoples overall, and the central group began to make their way onto the stage.

The dancers around the room put all the focus on the troupe approaching the stage, pulsing in and out as they sang. Other instruments joined the drums in a crescendo of music as the dancers pulled inward towards the stage.

Then, all of a sudden, the music stopped and everyone fell flat on the floor. Only one dancer was left standing. Dressed in far more ornate attire with swirling skirts, layers of glitter, flowing golden curls down her back, and floating gemstones that flickered and glowed with her every movement, the main dancer looked out over us and grinned in delight.

I would recognize those dimples anywhere.

A feminine voice, enhanced by magic, washed out over the crowd — “Ladies and gentleman, we would like to present Miss Francesca Landon!”

The crowd roared. Valarr grinned and clapped.

The dancers on the floor rose as the music began again, whirling around Frankie in perfect unison, singing and performing complex footwork to the drumbeat. Frankie joined the line of dancers. Her choreography seemed less polished than the rest, though impressive for someone who only had an hour or so to practice. Despite this, she was still quite graceful and lovely, and the crowd didn’t seem to mind Frankie’s lack of practice due to her incredible beauty and magnetic charm.

Frankie sang long, poetic verses about Valarr’s achievements from his time in the Underdark to his protection of Frankie during their travels together.

Valarr stood at this point, hands clasped to his face as he watched in tense, rapt attention. I found myself holding my breath. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Gimbal peer closely at the formations of the dancers, her eyebrows knitting together in confusion and something like recognition.

Magic and fire flew across the stage as the dancers struck their final pose. Frankie came forward to bow, the other dancers behind her clasping hands and following suit. The crowd burst into applause as the dancers slipped off the stage to mingle. Swaths of people gathered to greet Frankie up close, and she vanished behind the masses of bodies.

“That wasn’t a dance,” Gimbal said, low. “It was a ritual.”

Orre boomed, “We need everyone at the table in case something happens.”

I turned. Valarr’s seat was empty. I looked up and saw him briefly before he disappeared into the crowd. Orre and I exchanged a look, and I slipped into the throng of people after the paladin.

“Valarr?” I called. “Valarr!”

Finally, I heard a collective gasp. A hush settled over the crowd. Some people at the front stepped back, while those near the back stood on their tiptoes to look over one another. A knot of fear in my stomach, I took advantage of my small stature to weave through other patrons and press closer to the stage.

I saw Valarr standing before everyone without his glamour.

Frankie took his hand and held it up. “Our hero!” She announced proudly.

Valarr hesitated, then kneeled, kissing Frankie’s hand. Everyone cheered. The patrons began to chatter excitedly among themselves. I pressed one hand to my chest and exhaled in relief.

Suddenly, thousands of aquamarine pebbles rattled across the floor as if someone had spilled them. The pebbles assembled themselves in front of Valarr and Frankie. They formed an hourglass, humanoid shape, gathering and solidifying into something that looked like a woman cut from jagged bits of deep-sea crystal. Dressed like the other dancers, she curtsied deeply to Valarr.

“This is your date!” Frankie exclaimed.

I had never seen one in person before — a Shardmind. She was beautiful. I got the sense she said something to Valarr, but the Ring of Mind-Shielding on my hand itched. My temples pulsed with a sudden headache. As I bent down to press my thumb and forefinger to my eyes, a small halfling server reached up to tap me.

“Um, excuse me, you have a request to speak with management?” She said nervously.

I looked up. A short distance away, the rest of my companions were gathered. I exchanged a look and a nod with Valarr. He spoke with the Shardmind just enough to be cordial before excusing himself. He took Frankie’s hand, and we joined the others.

“How’s our friend?” Gimbal asked.

I pressed my thumb to the tracker stone in my pocket. I felt Grinfish moving deep underground and flashed a thumb’s up.

“Come with me, please,” The halfling server requested. We followed her quietly back into Belfast’s office, unsure of whether or not we’d make it out of this alive.


	14. Day 4, Part 6: A Losing Hand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When Belfast tries to make an example of Piscín, Valarr intervenes.

She escorted us into a hallway that had been hidden away between two tapestries. They created an optical illusion that made the corridor appear to be a wall. One of the doors in the back of the hallway was opened for us, and the group made our way into what appeared to be a spacious and finely-decorated office. Belfast himself sat behind a large marble slab of a desk, flipping coolly through his ever-present book.

“All right, have a seat, ladies and gentleman,” He said with unblinking, sharp eyes. “Miss Landon, that was an excellent performance.”

“You took me away from my fans,” Frankie replied, offended.

Belfast gave us a taut smile. “The crowd can wait. A little absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

I looked around at everyone’s faces. Orre sat very still. True to her lack of awareness, Frankie sat back in her chair in bored annoyance, while Valarr held his breath and did his best to avoid looking at Belfast. Even Gimbal, who had given Belfast a bit of lip only an hour or so before, was quiet and tense. Nickel sat in silence.

Everyone at the table, including Belfast, was surrounded by bodyguards and attendants. Every time I tried to look at their faces, they looked blurred, as if my eyes struggled to focus.

Belfast’s eyes flicked over to Gimbal. “Why don’t you keep it where I can see it?”

Gimbal froze, then slowly lifted her healing draught, setting it on the surface of the table.

“It’s just a healing draught,” Gimbal squeaked.

Belfast raised his eyebrows. “Yep.”

“You can try it if you want.”

“I think I’ve heard that. Yeah, let’s keep it right there where I can see it.

“I seem to recall you guys have a, uh, _connection_ ,” Belfast continued. “Seem to remember you have a man on the inside. Am I wrong? That you have somebody down in the tunnels?”

Orre sat frozen in what appeared to be pure terror, looking wide-eyed from face to face and trying to silently communicate. The rest of us nodded quietly in response to Belfast’s question. All of us did our best to be agreeable without any one person standing out.

Frankie pointed both of her fingers towards Belfast and flashed a smile. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, _handsome_.”

Belfast reached up, took Frankie’s hands, and lowered them onto the desk, never breaking his very disapproving eye contact with her.

“I got one lady in my life,” He told her, then stuck his thumb behind him to point at the giant mural of Tymora on the wall. “I am a man of limited patience. Our last meeting, we discussed that you had a contact in the tunnels.”

“But I don’t remember-”

“That’s enough from you, Miss Landon. You’ve done an excellent part, but my last conversation was with your companions.” The proprietor blinked, then shot a pointed glare at me. “How ’bout your collateral? I have a request and I have a backup.”

“Let’s hear it,” I said.

He laughed. “I want everything you have on Dysus.”

We fell silent. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Orre shake his head. There was an outburst of activity. My companions began to chatter, some claiming they knew nothing about Dysus, some trying desperately to offer enough information to get Belfast off our backs, and Frankie coming up with grand lies born of her own delusions.

I interrupted, “The drow had an extensive conversation with Dysus back in her private quarters. I know very little of what occurred between them, but I do know she has a gallery of artifacts in addition to several millennia’s worth of personal journals containing firsthand accounts of her experiences.”

Belfast flipped open his book and began to take notes.

“To be honest, we don’t really know that much about her,” Valarr said. “She wanted to examine me because I’m unusual, but-”

“What,” Belfast cut him off, punctuating a sentence in his notes, “is she doing here?”

“She seems to like interesting and unique things,” Nickel spoke. “That’s probably why Dysus is in a port city. There’s all sorts of strange things here and passing through. That’s about it.”

“What is a lady of her means doing charging rent?” Belfast shot back.

The Warforged looked around to us inquisitively. “I don’t know! She’s a monster. They hoard treasure! That’s what they do, right? You know, you slay the monster, there’s a hoard of gold. It’s just a thing.”

“You realize I’m going to be gifting you human lives. Is this all you have in the way of collateral?” Belfast cut in.

Several people began speaking at once even as the proprietor sat back in his chair, looking rather impatient with us.

“Listen,” I said. I knew what I was about to say what a betrayal, and my mouth went dry. I continued anyway. “I’m as curious about her as you are for a few reasons. Medusae are immortal and this one appears to be aging or even dying. Plus, Dysus is missing an eye and Thalia is the reason why.”

Belfast took notes as I spoke, making affirmative noises and nodding. He flipped back and forth through the pages, scratching notes in the margins and occasionally muttering to himself as the rest of the party stewed in horrified silence. Orre simply looked at me with widened eyes, shaking his head.

The halfling looked to me and pointed to the healing draught with his quill. “Go ahead and finish that.”

I inhaled sharply and hesitated, but obeyed. Gimbal and I met eyes as I leaned across the table. There was an odd moment where time felt slow; I lifted the draught to my lips and drank.

When I finished, Belfast slammed his book shut. He threw book and pen onto the desk in front of him, and both vanished right in front of our eyes. The halfling snapped his fingers, and two of the bodyguards moved in on me on cue. They grabbed me by the shoulders of my jacket and yanked me out of my chair.

“Let’s see. I’m going to give you one, two, three, four, five of my men,” The halfling said, holding up his fingers as he counted.

The two guards holding me pinned me to the table, holding out my left arm.

“W-well, I feel like the best collateral,” Frankie interjected, suddenly trembling and tripping over her words, “would be to send me back to my family! You could get a lot of money—”

“Oh, Miss Landon, don’t worry about that,” Belfast said. He turned to the guards holding me. “So, five men. You bring five men back…”

Another guard stepped forward, holding an axe.

“You get all your fingers back.”

“ _Stop_.”

At some point, I screwed my eyes shut tight in animal panic, but the sound of Valarr’s voice caught me off guard. I opened my eyes. He stood over me, one arm tossed over me protectively, the other reaching up to hold the axe in place.

“If all you need is somebody’s hand,” he said to Belfast without taking his eyes off the axe, “take mine instead.”

A tense moment passed. Belfast shrugged.

“Doesn’t matter to me,” he said.

I was thrown back in my chair. Valarr took a deep breath, held his arm out on the table, and closed his eyes as he exhaled. Some part of me wanted to stop him, to cry out, “You don’t have to do this,” but I was frozen in place.

I barely heard the axe fall with a meaty thud. It sounded distant, deadened. There was a momentary flash of fire as the blade cauterized his wound on impact, and Valarr sank to his knees. I think he screamed. I may have also screamed. Frankie definitely screamed.

“Hate gettin’ blood on my desk,” Belfast muttered, then absently gestured to the hand. “Can someone put that on ice? ‘Til they get my people back? Thank you.”

“This is a terrible joint,” Nickel said in something like shock.

“What is wrong with you?” Frankie cried. “You just cut Valarr’s hand off!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get it back.”

Valarr sat very still on the floor, shaking as he held his arm.

Belfast smiled at us. “So, yeah. Bye.”

The guards moved in on us, then, grabbing us and ushering the whole party out of the office and back down the hallway from which we came.

Thrown back into the noise and gaiety of the Smiling Lady, I felt as if I were dreaming. The world around us continued to revel in the memory of the recent performance. I could only stand stock still as the other party members tried to recover from the shock of what they had just witnessed. I glanced up at Valarr. His head was turned away from me.

“It is time,” Orre finally said, turning towards the front entrance. We trailed behind him. None of us were in any position to resist or disagree.


	15. Day 4, Part 7: Underground

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Belfast's mercenaries accompany the party into the tunnels to face off with the pirates.

“ _We’ve been monitoring the Inner Planes for some time now, such as the Elemental Planes. Recently they’ve become a bit unstable. The areas that see the worst of this instability are those sitting on ‘weak spots’ between the planes. They’re like crossroads. Some legends call it the thinning of the veil. And sometimes, such strange things come wandering into our plane from the other side._ ”

— Taken from a Magical Geography lecture at the Academy of Ilsthanandruthil

At some point while we walked to the tunnels, Belfast’s men caught up to us. They appeared out of the crowd, suddenly walking alongside our group as if they’d been there all along. I noted a dwarf, a tiefling, and three humans, all men.

I took a fold of Valarr’s shirtsleeve in my fingers and tugged gently. “If you’re able to, you could summon your horse. I’ll lead while you get some rest.”

The paladin said nothing for a moment, then waved his remaining hand. His divine mount appeared. I helped him into the saddle and took the reins. Orre fell in step beside me like a silent shepherd. I occasionally pressed my thumb to the tracker stone to help him guide us to the tunnels.

“I can get us to the caves,” Orre told me, “but do not know where to go once we get inside.”

“Don’t worry about that, sir. Just tell us where you need to go,” one of the human men said.

I sighed in relief. At least Belfast’s men were being cordial and cooperative.

Our trek to the caves took us down past the edge of the Bazaar, close to the docks, and onto the beach that fanned out on the southwestern edge of the city. Here, the sand under our feet eventually gave way to rocky coastline beneath the shadow of the cliff side. Waves crashed against the jagged stone. Now, I could see why Grinfish told us to meet him at the cliffs. The open mouth of a dark, dripping cave was tucked into the cliffside.

Gimbal put her thumb and forefinger in her mouth and whistled. Ellie swooped down from the sky to join us. The metal griffin cast concerned looks at our new companions and the cave.

I heard Valarr take a deep breath. He stirred and opened his eyes, waking from his trance. He slipped to the ground. “Well, it’s back underground for me, then.”

“Feeling any better?” I asked gently.

“No,” he said, then gestured to dismiss his horse and summon a giant lizard mount in its place. He hopped back onto it and patted behind him. “In this form it can crawl on walls, if necessary.”

I shook my head to reject his offer. “I need to stay upfront with the guards to help them navigate.”

The men Belfast lent us gathered around as we unfurled our maps. I addressed the tracking stone to pinpoint Grinfish’s location. Lighting torches and using as much magical lighting as possible, we descended into the subterranean tunnels. The air was cool down here, damp, and the darkness oppressive. Many of us, including myself, possessed Darkvision, but even that only gave us so much reach in the blackness of the caverns.

We came up with a solid method of navigation as we maneuvered through the tunnels. Using the stone, I found Grinfish’s location, and pointed in the direction we needed to go. Then, Belfast’s men would help us find the best route on the map to get us to our desired location. Also, because Orre was uninhibited by the rocky terrain, he would run ahead to scout for us in case of collapsed caverns or treacherous underground cliffs and rivers.

The way down was quiet. Even Orre seemed on edge. Valarr held his arm and grit his teeth, detached slightly from the rest of the group and lost in thought; I frowned worriedly and turned away from him, keeping my mind on leading the party to our destination. Gimbal took Valarr’s lead and hopped onto the back of her griffin construct. The small gnome easily fit on top of Ellie without straining her. Frankie was the only person unfazed, of course, trailing along behind the guards and I while singing and making conversation with the newcomers.

“I am so bored. This trip is taking so long,” Frankie pouted. “Valarr, can I ride on your lizard?”

The drow replied, “No.”

Frankie stood, slack-jawed, in the middle of the cave as if she couldn’t believe what she’d just heard. I sensed an oncoming tantrum. Nickel and I exchanged a look across the crowd. Sure enough, Frankie began screaming obscenities. Her shrill voice echoed through the cave tunnels. Nickel moved towards Frankie with his free hand held out — the other was casting a Light spell — and curled his arm around her waist to pick her up.

The Warforged paused suddenly like he noticed something. His head swiveled to look down a small fissure in the wall. It wasn’t quite big enough for any of us to squeeze through except maybe Gimbal. Even as Frankie continued to scoff and shout, Nickel held out his light source and peered further into the fissure.

A guard put his hand on Nickel’s arm and said, “If you saw something down there, leave it.”

“Damn critters,” the Warforged muttered as he lowered his hand.

Even Frankie understood we were possibly being watched or followed. Best case scenario, we’d attracted something’s attention. Everyone quieted. Our journey resumed with dimmer lights and hushed voices.

Suddenly, deeper in the caves, the dwarf at the front of the party turned to the rest of us. I had no idea how far we had gone or how long it had been. He said, “I don’t know what we’re getting into here, but Belfast told us we were here to take out the pirates. Just ahead…” The dwarf adjusted his map so the rest of us could see it, then glanced up at the tiefling.

The tiefling pulled a spear off his back and etched a rough map of a chamber up ahead of us in the sand, then indicated an open spot in the edge of the chamber.

“This right here is usually where the ocean comes up in open pockets like this,” he said. “Lots of weird stuff comes out of the ocean in these caves. We’re comin’ in at a pinch point, so it’d be good for us to go in already planning on an ambush.”

“You think they’re waiting for us,” Orre stated.

“I don’t know who you got on the inside, but judging from these maps, this upcoming chamber is the best place to wait for somebody. I’d advise those of you who can fight with weapons to stay up front or follow up the back. Keep your mages in the middle.”

Valarr started to step forward, but I held the blade of my rapier in front of him, shaking my head. “Are you kidding? You have one hand. Stay in the back.”

“Nickel should join him in the back of the group,” Orre said.

Nickel protested, “I’m a caster.”

“You have a warhammer.”

“Fine...”

We allowed Orre to do what he did best — organize us into an adequate battle formation. The pinch point would only have enough space for Orre and I to fit through. The tiefling with his spear ended up directly behind Orre. Gimbal and one of the human guards both had bows, so they took their places behind me.

“Nervous?” I asked the human, who was fidgeting with his bow.

“Oh, you know,” he replied and shrugged a little too emphatically. “Not everyday one of the newest guards in Belfast’s reserves gets sent out for something so important.”

I looked him over. He was hard for me to place. Was he attractive, or were his features simply symmetrical? Was his skin sun-tanned or was he naturally that shade? When I glanced away, the human guard’s facial features were difficult to recall, a blur of olive skin, brown hair, and brown eyes.

I narrowed my eyes. “Why would Belfast send a new guard into something like this?”

“You got me.” He sent a sharp, sidelong look at the tiefling nearby, but the other guard was busy discussing strategy with Orre. The human dropped his voice and said, “Let’s talk later.”

A long looked passed between us. I nodded.

When we had our party in proper formation, we cautiously approached the choke point. The open chamber came into view. It was as high and broad as the tiefling guard described, with massive stalactites and stalagmites, as well as large boulders that could serve as hiding places. The rough terrain gradually gave way to sand, and on the far side of the cavern, I saw the ocean water lapping at the underground shoreline.

Orre took a hesitant step out from the tunnel. An arrow whizzed through the air and landed – _THUNK_! – at his feet.

A shout ricocheted off the cavern walls, and from behind the boulders, pairs of pirates brandishing weapons emerged. Our group immediately dropped into battle stances, backing up into tight formation and ready for a battle.


	16. Day 4, Part 8: The Worm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group finds more than just pirates down in the tunnels.

Frankie launched into a song to enhance and protect us. Gimbal moved first, lugging a bomb at the pirates. The explosion knocked one off their feet.

Orre was the first to rush forward, swinging his hefty greatsword at the nearest pirate. Two well-aimed strikes wounded his chosen target and splashed blood across the boulder behind him, but the man raised his scimitar to retaliate. The sword failed to pierce Orre’s skin. The blade sprayed sparks into the air like the strike of flint.

A second pirate — a bowman — emerged from behind the boulder. His aim was true, slicing open my side; I stumbled backwards but recovered. Summoning my Bladesong from deep within me and rushing forward, I met my foe head to head.

I flung a whip of lightning towards the bowman, dragging him towards me as he convulsed in the confines of the spell. He again aimed his crossbow at me, but I knocked aside the bolt with a quick shielding spell and rushed him. Missing one slash and landing a second upward swipe, I sent the pirate reeling back.

Many of the other party members rushed out into the field, helping in their own ways. Nickel sent up a dust devil on the far side of the chamber, blocking the pirates in the back. Valarr crawled onto the wall in the saddle of his lizard mount. He threw light out into the chamber for us, summoning glowing orbs to serve as torches. I couldn’t see many of the other party members. The fight was a blur in the flickering, vast shadows of the chamber.

Suddenly, I smelled a scent like the strange burn of electricity, similar to lightning just before it strikes. A crack resounded from the far side of the chamber. I looked to see Thalia herself, wielding two blades. She rose to her feet to join the battle. She looked much the same, but her presence carried more weight now. The silhouette of her blackened antlers and the sight of her eyepatch instilled a renewed sense of resolution in us. We tensed.

Thalia leveled her swords at two of her own fighters. Both of them dropped to the ground in pain.

At the same time, the ocean waters in the corner of the cave swelled as if alive, then burst, revealing a disturbingly lanky figure wrapped in dripping battle leathers. He rose from the foam, eyes expanded beyond their sockets as if in pouches, with a widened jaw filled with rows of needle-like teeth. Long, webbed limbs and trails of matted hair fell over the bulk of his frame, tangling in wet knots.

The creature sunk his teeth into the pirate nearest the pool, easily overpowering the man and slipping back into the water. The pirate stood no chance. He vanished, struggling, below the surface, followed by a red bloom of blood.

A cold wave of goosebumps pricked at my skin. For a moment, I could not gather myself in the midst of my shock. The worst part is I _knew_ that monster. Recognized him.

“My _HUSBAND_!” Frankie cried elsewhere on the battlefield. She took off across the chamber at a full-on sprint, heedless of the fight. “We have to help him!”

Orre and I were too involved with the pirates in front of us to interfere in Frankie’s mad rush. Distracting the fighters with his heavy swings, Orre took the majority of the blows, while I dodged and weaved around them, slashing with my blade.

Just then, I saw Gimbal, mounted on Ellie’s back, take off into the air. She flew towards the ceiling of the cavern, but before I could see what she was up to, Nickel caught my eye. The Warforged flung meteors at the pirates who had collapsed to the cave floor writhing after Thalia arrived. Instead of hitting their targets, the meteors bent around their space.

I could see Belfast’s guards fighting alongside us. Some of them were a little worse off than others, but all five attacked swiftly and mercilessly. I did, however, see the human I’d spoken to earlier trip as he tried to maneuver his crossbow. He accidentally sent a bolt right into Frankie, who happened to be running by in a frenzy right at that moment.

The two pirates affected by Thalia’s magic stopped writhing, then silently rose from the ground. Black antlers protruded from their scalps. One of them held his hand out towards the ocean water and cast a spell, sending a scalding spray of water into the air. The other did the same to a guard, one of the humans, by flinging witch bolt in his direction. The bolt connected and the human groaned in pain, staggering to escape from the magic’s ongoing power.

Some... thing slid out of the cavern entrance, then. The creature appeared to be a ragged, small, green lizard woman draped in long, matted blonde hair that trailed behind her. Her eyes held a maniac gleam.

“You are being too loud!” She screamed, then threw a sleeping spell in a random direction. The one casting Witch Bolt dozed off, as did the human guard. They dropped.

I heard Thalia shout through gritted teeth, “Them first, guards later. Get the _FISH_!”

She moved in on one of the human guards. Her twin swords whipped like lightning, cutting him down easily. Thalia then pointed a blade at Nickel. The Warforged swayed, clutching his head. Just then, Grinfish emerged from the water again. I got a better look at his monstrous, changed form as he rushed the horned priest left standing. Drawing a sword from his belt, Grinfish slashed at the caster twice, only managing to land one of the blows.

I heard a sizzling sound far above us and looked up to see one of Gimbal’s acid stones eating through a massive stalactite just above the sleeping mage. The stalactite narrowly missed its target as the mineral deposit fell to the earth and shattered loudly. The earth shook beneath our feet.

Everyone stopped for a moment as the dust settled. Something seemed… wrong. The ground still shook, ever so slightly. It began as a light rumble. The stones underneath our feet rattled as the rumbling grew in volume. Dust and debris fell from above. The noise grew to a deafening roar. In the center of the chamber, the ground began to crack, then swell, then burst.

In the midst of the explosive spray of debris, I glimpsed a shape — a massive, moving column of rock jerking upright out of the ground. The dust settled. That was no pillar of stone. The unfathomably enormous, worm-like beast that emerged from the floor curled itself above us and let loose a guttural, otherworldly howl.

The lizard woman shrieked at us like a mother lecturing her children, “Look, now you woke it up!”

“See, it was here the whole time!” Orre exclaimed. He sounded almost happy. Just then, a tiny, glinting blade caught under one of the monster’s scales captured my and Orre’s attention. The earth genasi put his hands on his hips, sighed in annoyance, glanced down at the hilt of his old, broken greatsword, and said, “Man, I really gotta get that back.”

The creature’s body was comprised of floating, segmented bits of rock and earth. Even its mouth was just solid, flat rock that bloomed open like a flower to consume whatever lay in front of it.

Before I could think of what to do, I felt that overwhelming pressure in the back of my mind. My Ring of Mind-Shielding itched.

Someone was… calling to me. The sensation grew stronger and stronger. I staggered back under the weight of a sudden _presence_ in my mind. Every part of my skin strained under the weight of this sudden burden. My vision blurred. I stumbled, fell to my knees, then dropped onto cold earth.

_“...Miss Bán?”_

With a sharp inhale, I opened my eyes and found myself back in the ballroom from my visions. This time, there were other attendees, all elves. They whirled delicately. I recognized old, traditional dances and music that had since gone out of fashion.

“ _I’m afraid I may have broken through at a bad time_ ,” I heard the voice say. He continued speaking, but his voice became muffled as if speaking from another room.

For some reason, I felt like his voice was coming from one of the hallways off to the side. I began to walk into the corridor. Echoing, distantly, all around me, I heard Orre’s voice screaming and the clanging of metal against rock. The floor trembled slightly beneath me. An explosion? The sounds dissipated, and I was still in the hallway.

“Who are you?” I called.

“Who am I? _Well_! I...” I heard more inaudible words, followed by, “ _My_ ring!”

I recognized an archaic accent from Ilsthanandruthil — Elf Country. The nation sat far to the north of the Heartlands, isolated from the rest of the world by the Forest of Seven Eyes.

When I heard the words “my ring,” I recalled a rumor about items designed for psychic protection I’d read long ago. The previous owner’s soul may end up trapped in the item if they are wearing it at the time of their death. I glanced down at my Ring of Mind-Shielding.

Behind me, I felt a sharp burst of air, like leaving a window open overnight and waking up shivering to a crisp breeze. A voice mused in low, clear alto tones, “Liadan, there you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Before I could turn around, the floor collapsed beneath me. I fell into a pit of darkness.


	17. Day 5, Part 1: Distrust

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Grinfish, the party, Belfast's guards, an old elven soul speaking to Piscín through her ring, and a strange new creature named Shala all in the same place, no one's feeling particularly trusting or cooperative.

While lost in the depths of unconsciousness, I saw more visions, but they went by so quickly I couldn’t catch most of them. The blue elf appeared again. For a moment, I could make out threads of black veins around their eyes and the glint of frost on their cheekbones. Their eyes were white with black sclera. Then, they were gone.

There was another image — Pascal, sleeping. The first rays of sun peered through the window. We were in his bedroom. I knew this memory, and it stung. I took a moment to admire the soft planes of his face, the light glinting off his platinum hair, the long and dark lashes. Then, I grabbed my bag and slipped out without waking him.

All the time, I had the vague sense of someone much older than me flitting around my consciousness. The presence chided and fretted over me without speaking.

I felt the sensation of floating to the surface of a body of water. I opened my eyes, blinked, and stirred.

Valarr sat next to me on a relatively long, flat rock. The cave was dimmer than it had been during the fight. The only sources of light were a few torches and the dying embers of a fire underneath a cauldron.

“You’re awake,” Valarr said in Elvish.

“What happened?” I responded in the same tongue.

I must not have been as articulate as I thought, because he chuckled at me. “First, let’s get some food in you.”

The cauldron was apparently full of stew. I learned the lizard woman’s name was Shala, and she’d cooked for the party after the battle. Shala slept curled up near the cauldron, her tail over her face. She looked more like a massive blonde hair ball than a living being.

“How late is it?” I looked to Valarr, sipping my bowl of stew.

He snorted. “We don’t really measure time down here. I’m on second watch with Grinfish.”

I made out the tall, stringy man’s silhouette on the other side of the chamber. Judging from the shape of the shadows and what features I could make out in the torch light, he’d shifted back to a more humanoid form.

“You think we can trust him?”

“He’s the only lead we’ve got right now.”

I let my eyes stray over to the guards. There were only four left — the tiefling, the dwarf, and two humans. The human who spoke to me was still among them.

Valarr followed my eyes and sighed. “Yeah, it looks like I’m not getting my hand back.”

“What happened?”

“After the worm appeared and you fell unconscious, Frankie of all people managed to get the eye. We fought the beast for a bit, one of the guards died, then Nickel banished the worm with magic. Thalia and the other pirates fled. We did catch one, though.”

My eyes widened. “You caught a pirate.”

He gestured. I looked in the direction he pointed. A pirate was dozing a ways off, hands bound to a pike behind his back.

“Oh, and the tunnel we came through collapsed,” Valarr nodded to a pile of rocks and debris, “so we have to try and find our way out another way.”

I said nothing.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine, I think. A little disoriented, but fine.” I smiled. “How’s the, er, arm?”

Valarr looked down at his amputated limb. “That axe was definitely enchanted. There’s no way a cauterized wound this large would be so painless otherwise.”

“So, no pain?”

“Soreness, but the actual pain went away.” He leveled his eyes with mine for a moment. “Are you sure you’re all right? Did you have any more of those... memories?”

I chewed the inside of my cheek thoughtfully, then held out my hand, willing the invisible ring to reveal itself. “I’m not sure which of them are actually my memories anymore. What do you know of rings like these?”

Valarr gazed at it for a moment, then shook his head. “Not much, I’m afraid.”

“It’s called a Ring of Mind-Shielding. It protects the wearer from mental magic, such as telepathy or thought detection spells. The only catch is that if you die while wearing it, your soul becomes imprisoned in the ring,” I told him. “I think... someone is already inside it. I think he’s trying to talk to me.”

“And you think the memories are his?”

“No. Maybe. I think the ballroom I keep seeing is his memory, but everything else might be mine. I’m not sure.”

He nodded thoughtfully, but said nothing.

Grinfish passed by us a little closer then. The fish tipped his head to me in an awkward greeting. I did the same in kind.

“The fish took Francesca aside privately after the battle to speak with her. They were gone for some time,” Valarr mentioned, still speaking Elvish.

I watched Grinfish from the corner of my eye as he sidled away.

I’m not sure how much time passed, but after awhile the others began to stir. Nickel and the lizard woman — Shala — were the first to awake. Shala barked a greeting and tended to her cauldron; I watched her shake a number of cooking tools and ingredients from her mass of hair. Nickel, on the other hand, took the time to check in with me.

“Valarr filled me in, but thank you,” I told him.

“Figured as much. Don’t hurt to ask, though,” he said. “I reckon y’know enough about what went down in the fight. Banishin’ means that thing’s still out there, though.”

I shrugged. “It’s on another plane for now.”

“Fair enough. In any case, that there varmint is exactly what you’d expect.” Nickel jerked his head to gesture towards Shala. When she noticed me looking, she gave me a manic grin. “Be careful ‘round her, but I don’t think she means harm. She tried to loot yer body, but Valarr stopped her.”

“Sleepin’ head!”

Shala made her way over to us. She walked in a way I can only describe as “toddling.” She also only came up to my waist — and I am not a tall woman to begin with. As she walked, her blonde hair trailed on the ground, picking up rocks and debris. Shala held up a steaming bowl of stew.

“For me?” I asked.

“Yes! For the sleepin’ head!” A tendril of her hair whipped out like a prehensile tail, one lock curled around a spoon. “You take.”

I hesitantly reached out to accept the spoon and stew. “Thank you.”

“You lucky when you fall over, Shala not think you die,” She shot me a mischievous smile and pointed at the stew. “Gran Gran taught not to waste nothing.”

I nearly spat out the stew, but Nickel shook his head. “It’s cave animals, pearly. She’s messin’.”

Swallowing the disgusted lump in my throat, I managed a few spoonfuls of soup. My eyes trailed over the rest of the camp. Frankie was talking to Valarr. The guards busied themselves putting on their armor and cleaning up their bedrolls. Orre patrolled the rim of the massive hole in the ground where the worm once was. Gimbal tended to Ellie. The captive pirate was either still asleep or feigning sleep.

One person was missing, however.

“Hey, Frankie,” I called. “Where’s Grinfish?”

She looked around. “Huh! I don’t know. Has anyone seen my husband?”

Orre overheard. We locked eyes, then he turned his gaze over to the tidal pool in the corner of the chamber. It was the only other way out besides the hole leading further into the caves. I put my thumb on the tracker stone. I felt Grinfish — deep, deep, down in the heavy dark pressure of the sea. Impossibly fast.

“It’s probably fine. He’ll come back,” Frankie said.

Out of her earshot, Nickel muttered, “What if he brings somethin’ else with ‘im?”

While we waited, Valarr and Frankie confronted the captive pirate — or rather, Frankie confronted the pirate, and Valarr tried to keep her on task. There was quite a bit of eyelash fluttering, flattering words, and inane questions about whether or not Thalia had a romantic history with Grinfish. The pirate looked disgusted by this. Valarr steered Frankie back to more important matters.

“How come Thalia wanted that eye so bad, anyway?” She questioned. The captive pirate looked unimpressed by her interrogation, but Orre passed behind him, sharpening one of his swords.

“Status,” he relented. “It impressed the captain. Surprise.”

“So, Thalia’s not the captain?”

“Black Bess is the captain. She needed a first mate. Thalia proved herself after taking on Dysus.”

Valarr chimed in, “Was Dysus old when her eye was taken?”

“Dysus has been old forever.”

“Aged, I mean.”

The pirate snorted. “Can’t say we’ve met.”

“Why does Thalia hate Grinfish?” Frankie interrupted.

“Thalia hates Egrin because Beshaba hates him. He failed her. Thalia calls him a failure and a traitor.”

Gimbal’s head snapped up. “What did you just call him?”

Valarr and I exchanged a shocked look. _Egrin Dreed. The pirate captain._

“Okay, forget Dysus,” Valarr said. “How old is Grinfish?”

A loud spray of water like a geyser burst from the tidal pool. Grinfish, in his battle-ready, angler fish guise, stepped out of the water and shook himself off. As the droplets rained from his hair and body, he slowly transformed back into his more humanoid form.

Grinfish hauled a large fish out of the water and tossed his catch towards Shala. The lizard woman made delighted noises and ran to her cauldron.

The lizard woman yelled back at us, “We eat. Then I lead you out. There are many tunnels.”

In the corner of the chamber, an open black hole yawned at us in the dim, flickering light. I wondered what time of day it was, what part of the city we were underneath. I looked at Grinfish, and the captive pirate, and the guards, and us, and wondered who all would make it to the surface.


	18. Day 5, Part 2: The Spy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trust in the group continues to fracture, especially when a spy is discovered in their midst.

Shala put out the fire under her cauldron and bounded ahead of us to lead the way. The rest of us fell into line behind her. Orre stayed towards the back alongside the House guards. The pirate was manacled Valarr’s lizard mount. Nickel stayed to the center and summoned a ball of Light into his hand to pave the way for the humans among us.

Valarr made his way up front to be with Shala. The woman skittered onto his mount and up his back, perching on his shoulders.

I stayed near Nickel in the middle of the group, keeping an eye on everyone as we climbed over and around the rocky terrain. Most of us seemed tired and focused on getting out of the caves. I found myself trailing back a bit as we went; the brown-haired human guard subtly fell into step beside me.

“You do a suspiciously good job of ‘accidentally’ ending up next to me,” I mused.

He leaped down from a rock and helped me down, but didn’t reply.

I continued, “So, what are you trying to make it home to?”

“Unfinished business,” he laughed.

“Nobody waiting for you topside?”

“Ha! Hope so.”

I felt the weight of the others guards’ gaze on my back and realized I wasn’t going to get much else out of him as long as they watched.

During our journey, Valarr would ask Shala where to turn, and she enthusiastically gesticulated in her direction of choice. The path we took was winding and strange, and often we had to turn sideways or climb over fallen boulders. Strange, mutated cave creatures would lurk in the shadows or leer at us before slipping away into the nearest crevice. Shala lead us around nests of monsters, careful not to disturb them. Shadows flickered on the walls and in rocky crags.

It was hard to have a private conversation. Gimbal and Ellie stayed up front by Valarr, and from the words that echoed back to me, I heard them discuss plans to replace his lost hand with a mechanical prosthetic.

Grinfish — or rather, Egrin, though we hadn’t confronted him about that yet — and Frankie stayed to the middle, a bit of ahead of me. I found myself relieved I could keep an eye on them.

“Hey, where’s that guy?” The human guard asked.

I turned and looked behind me. I saw the other human, as well as the tiefling and dwarf. “Who?”

“The hulking rock man,” he said.

There was a scream from up front. I turned in time to see the pirate crumple from a blow to the head. Blood ran down the side of his face. He writhed on the ground. Chaos ensued as we all crammed into a small space and whirled, trying to piece together what happened. Had we been attacked?

Gimbal screamed, “Orre, what the hell!”

All of us turned to see Orre’s eyes peeking out from the wall of the cave. He melded out of the rock when she drew attention to him. A patch of blood was smeared across one of his massive hands.

“He was coming with us calmly,” Gimbal shouted. “He could have helped us.”

“We made a deal,” Orre replied, his voice unusually level and grim.

“What are you talking about?”

“This has to be done. We picked sides. Our mission was the kill the pirates.”

The bleeding pirate trembled, twitched, then went limp.

Grinfish slid into the conversation. “He had a lot of information about all of you. You think he was sleeping?”

“Our mission was not to kill the pirates!” Gimbal continued shouting at Orre. “It was to get the eye!”

“Are we planning to keep the guards?” Grinfish asked.

All of us turned to him. “What?”

“If we were planning to leave the guards alive,” he said, “then why did you just tell them we were here for the eye? Now we have to get rid of everyone.”

Frankie looked up at Grinfish, then to Valarr. “We have to kill the guards!”

“Frankie, no!” Valarr held out his hand to stop her.

The House guards began to nervously shuffle back down the way we came.

Frankie held out her hand and opened her mouth to sing a long, delicate note, sending out a blast of bardic magic. Three of the guards immediately fell under her spell. They turned, enamored by Frankie, as the blonde human trembled nervously.

“Hey, guys.” Frankie shot them a flirtatious grin. “I hate to do this to you, but could you kill each other, please?”

“No!” Shala flung a sleep spell towards the guards before they could draw their weapons.

All four of them collapsed to the cave floor.

Valarr dismounted. “Francesca Landon!”

“We were supposed to kill them,” she whined. “I was just trying to help...”

“They were just trying to help, too!”

Frankie’s eyes welled up with tears. She began to stumble over her words, defending herself between loud sobs.

“My lord,” Nickel muttered. He held his head.

“Why is everyone being so mean to me?” She wept.

The bard turned to look up at Grinfish, eyes shining with tears.

“It’s okay, my dear. They don’t want them to die,” He told her gently.

“I’m feeling a bit uncomfortable,” Frankie said. She reached out to him.

With a coy smile, he took her hand. I sensed the burst of teleportation magic too late. They vanished. I realized with a gnawing sense of dread they took the eye with them.

A moment of silence passed. The rest of us remaining turned to look at Orre, the only voice still in favor of killing the guards.

“I spoke with Grinfish when everyone else was asleep. We should kill all of them,” Orre asserted.

Valarr scoffed. “Ah, yes, Grinfish, the most respectable member of our party. The one who just left with our only hope of redemption.”

“We gave up information on Dysus, yes. But Grinfish and Frankie could be defending us right now—”

“Pardon me for not having much hope in them,” I said.

“We failed,” Orre insisted. “Grinfish gave us this mission, and we failed to wrap up two loose ends, the guards and the pirates. Anyone allied with the House is not welcome at the inn.”

“We are not allied with the House just because we leave their guards alive!” I yelled. “And one of them seemed interested in siding with us!”

This quieted the others. We turned and stared down at the four sleeping guards.

“Which one?” Nickel asked.

I gestured to the brown-haired human. Valarr waved his hand, dispelling the illusion magic on him. The man’s guard attire evaporated. Instead of ceremonial armor, we all saw a uniform, and his ambiguous features sharpened and stuck in my memory more clearly.

“A spy,” Valarr observed.

I stepped across the other sleeping guards and slapped the cop across the face.

He jerked up, clutching his cheek. “ _OW_!”

“Rise and shine.”

“Uhh… ha… Hi,” The man replied. He flashed us a hesitant smile, then looked down at himself in realization. “So, uh… what are we gonna do about this? Where’d that fishy guy go?”

“He left. With the bard.”

“They prolly went back t’ Dysus,” Nickel commented.

“The Medusa?!”

Valarr laughed a bit and said, “You remember that mob outside the inn?”

“That was _you_ _guys_? Oh man,” The spy seemed delighted. “So that’s where you’ve been hiding. Listen, I’ve never even heard the name ‘Dysus’ until, like, three days ago. I just need out of here. If you wanna protect me, I can tell you as much as I can. I think I’m dead anyway.”

Everyone seemed to agree with this, and Valarr produced rope from his bag that we used to tie up the rest of the sleeping guards. We untied the dead pirate from the lizard and left him behind. Orre, still cloaked in abnormal silence and camouflaged with the wall, offered to carry the three of them. Admittedly, that set my nerves on edge, but we had no choice.

“Covens are supposed to stick together,” Shala hissed as she curled on the back of Valarr’s mount. She wrapped her mass of hair around herself and huddled inside.

“Hey,” The human sidled up next to me, then stuck out his hand. “Burch.”

I eyed him. “You’re not getting a name from me just yet.”

“Fair enough. Lead the way.”

My ears popped then. I stumbled over my feet. All of a sudden, a name and title foreign to me floated to the top of my memory. _Astrine Zweltain-Upstoffer, 2nd Class Diplomat to the Hierophant of the 5th House of the Sun._ I shook my head in confusion. Who was Astrine?


	19. Day 5, Part 3: Astrine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The soul in Piscín's ring reveals himself -- but only to lecture her. Still, it seems to be exactly the thing she needed to hear.

The rest of our afternoon, if I can even call it that, had passed in relative silence. There was no sense of time down here. We walked until we were tired and found an open, flat space, then stopped to set up camp.

I smoothed out my bedroll while the others started a fire. Nickel leaned against the wall of the cave, keeping a close watch on how Orre handled the sleeping guards. Valarr scouted the perimeter of the campsite.

My headache had returned. Now, as I set up my spot, it built into a grueling, consistent throb in my temples.

“You don’t look so good,” Burch said.

“Thanks,” I retorted.

He pulled a block of cheese out of his pack and offered it to me — an inconsequential gesture, and yet it struck me with a sense of deja vu.

“What’s wrong? Don’t like cheese?”

“It’s not that,” I told him, taking it from his hand. “Sorry, I have a headache.”

“Ha! Not surprised, personally.” Burch rolled his shoulders and stretched. “You know, if it’s a safe spot you’re looking for, I might be able to swing something. I’m not the only royal spy in the city. If you want to get in our safehouse, I might be able to vouch for you.”

“At what cost?” I took a bite out of the block of cheese.

“Oh, information, of course.”

“Of course.”

“What,” Orre roared, tearing his attention away from the other guards, “are you doing?”

I stood up in alarm. “Orre—”

He loomed over me. I didn’t realize the massive genasi could move so quickly. “Who is this man? Who claims him? Why should he hold our secrets?”

I shouted back in Primordial, “I’m trying to find some other way out. Grinfish is not trustworthy. If Burch turns on us, I will help you slay him myself.”

Burch looked back and forth between us with a neutral, uncomprehending expression.

“He is on the side of an unknown entity,” Orre snarled in the same guttural language.

“He is on the side of the most powerful man in this country.”

The genasi turned to Burch and snapped in Common, “How powerful is your leader?”

“The King?” Burch gave him an incredulous look. “Well, he’s... the King, man.”

Nickel made his way silently between all of us and held out his hands. He turned and gave Orre a look that said, _That’s enough_. Orre grunted and went back to tending the fire. Burch and I glanced at each other and nodded; he moved away to set up his own bedroll.

My vision swam when a wave of dizziness swept over me. I heard a distant, echoic voice, as if someone was yelling down one of the caverns, but none of the other party members reacted.

“... _without question, young lady! Stop this foolishness at once_.”

The voice solidified until it sounded as though someone spoke right next to me. I recognized it as the posh Elvish voice from my vision.

I thought, _Astrine_?

“ _Aha! There we are. It can be a pain to get your attention, my dear._ ”

I felt his presence. I could sense him chortling and bowing stiffly.

“ _Up until the day the drow’s true nature was revealed, I had no interest in revealing myself to you. Since then, I’ve been watching this situation escalate with naught but disdain._ ”

Unsure how to react, I laid back with a hand on my forehead and let him blather on. From his ramblings, I picked up this Astrine Zweltain-Upstoffer held a position in the Elvish court some 2,000 years ago. I recalled the house he served — the 5th House — as well as the 4th, 6th, and 12th Elvish Houses fell some 700 years ago after a bout of botched arranged marriages.

“... _In any case_ ,” his voice continued after he concluded talking about himself, “ _you and your companions are not a united front._ ”

_I hadn’t noticed,_ I responded.

“ _Don’t give me that, young lady! Whenever your companions discuss what to do, they are listened to, but ignored. Take the stony gentleman. Has anyone asked him his motivations? And that hideous barracuda has vanished with your greatest diplomat._ ”

I rolled my eyes. Sensing my annoyance at his mention of Frankie, Astrine continued to ramble about his distaste for the “impish whelp,” but insisted we needed her to get out of this alive.

“ _No attempt to assert yourself will get through to her. What she wants is that sea-born upstart. Hook him and she will follow._ ”

_I don’t trust him as an ally,_ I replied.

“ _But have you yet found him in a lie? Has anyone asked him why he wants to restore the Medusa’s face? It is the same with him as it is with everyone else; no one is asking the right questions or saying the right words._ ”

Astrine stopped speaking, and his presence withdrew. I opened my eyes and looked to see what drove him away. Nearby, Valarr rolled out his bedding. He struggled to smooth the roll and blanket with one hand.

“Need help?” I asked.

He shook his head and smiled. “Not at all. What about you? Feeling unwell again?”

“Not like before. I was dizzy for a moment, but it passed.”

“If you’re certain,” Valarr replied. He glanced around the cave, then said with an amused laugh, “I haven’t seen this level of intrigue and betrayal in some time. Surface-dwellers are not so different.”

I sat up. “This is... unusual.”

“I noticed. All of you act so...”

“Rash?”

His eyes glinted. “Inexperienced.”

I stayed quiet.

“We need to work together,” Valarr told me. “We need to trust each other. Piscín, I tried to sense Grinfish’s motives earlier. I felt something sinister, but I also felt something trying to fight that evil. I think he means well. He might be cursed.”

“...We should wait to talk about this,” I said. “Let’s wait to settle in and talk around the fire. Everyone needs to be on the same page.”

Valarr and I rounded everyone up except the sleeping guards. A fire crackled in the midst of our circle. Inside, I lamented the loss of Grinfish and Frankie, but brushed worries about what they might be doing from our minds. Astrine and Valarr were both right. We needed to get everyone to work together.

“There’s been a lot of infighting lately,” I pointed out. “We need to talk about this.”

Orre nodded emphatically. I sighed. At least he seemed to be on the same page. The others avoided eye contact and crossed their arms.

“We really need to have a better plan about a lot of things. We need to know how we’re getting out of here, what to do with the guards, and — sorry, Burch — what to do with the spy.”

“Kill them. Prove our loyalty to Grinfish,” Orre demanded, shifting enthusiastically where he sat.

Valarr drew his blade with a metallic ring. “No one is killing anyone. We most likely need the guards to get out of the tunnels; it’s how we found our way to the battle in the first place. And Burch could be backup in case Grinfish and Frankie betray us.”

“Aside from the monster we defeated, Grinfish is the only thing here familiar to me,” Orre said. He settled back into his seat. “He gave us a mission. We accepted this mission and its parameters. Completing this mission gives me purpose. My intention is to prove myself to my team and keep you all safe. To do this, we must appease those in power.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but he continued.

“We must pick a wall to put our backs against and fight. We refused the pirates, spat in Belfast’s face, and betrayed Dysus. Grinfish is all we have left.”

Shala unfurled herself and snaked beside Orre. “Shala thinks you have forgotten group. Can you not rely on each other? Faith in your coven, yes?”

“Thank you, Shala,” I said. “We should be working as a unit.”

Orre said, “The guards, they are not allied with us. Belfast could replace ten of them by shaking his purse.”

“That does not mean their lives are worth nothing,” Valarr objected. “There is, however, the matter of their memories.”

Burch chimed in here. “That sounds like a job for Marigold.”

“Who is Marigold?”

“Coworker. Ties up loose ends.” The spy winked. “You guys can come meet her. Come on over to my place. You’ll love her.”

Gimbal, who’d been silent thus far, spoke up. “Here’s a thought. Burch, you’re a spy for the king, right? And you need information on...”

“Belfast,” he said.

“Great. These guards work for the House. We get to the surface, lure them to your safehouse and turn them over to your team for information,” Gimbal paused here, deep in thought, “And then this Marigold can take care of them, however that works. Then we’re free to go back to the inn.”

Burch grinned. “Sounds solid to me.”

I looked to Orre. “How does that sound?”

He shrugged.

“Okay,” Valarr huffed. “Then all that’s left to do is figure out what to tell the guards.”

Astrine’s proud voice fluttered in the back of my mind. “ _Well done, Miss Ban._ ”


	20. Day 6, Part 1: Upwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party grapples with the stress of their situation as they finally make their way back to the surface.

Waking the other guards and convincing them we weren’t trying to murder them was easy enough. Burch tied his hands together again to persuade the others we’d woken him up first, then applied his illusory guardsman clothes once more. Afterwards, it was simply a matter of shaking the others awake. Valarr, all charming words and soft smiles, managed to convince the other three guards that Frankie and Grinfish had left and all was safe now.

The tiefling and blonde human still refused to associate with us, but the dwarf introduced himself to us as simply “Grant.” It turns out Gimbal speaks dwarvish, and she and Grant fell into friendly conversation. I breathed a sigh of relief. Having the entire party on the same page, it turns out, has its perks.

Valarr and I offered to take second watch, relinquishing first watch to Grant and Nickel.After setting up an alarm spell at the perimeter of camp, I fell into a trance. Nickel woke me a few hours later. He gave me a nod and helped me to my feet before powering down for the night.

Most of our watch passed uneventfully. Astrine took this opportunity to start offering his unsolicited opinion once more.

“ _Much as it pains me to say it, the paladin seems of pure heart._ ”

I ignored him.

“ _I’m surprised the thought of him as a potential suitor hasn’t crossed your mind_ ,” Astrine continued, “ _though I confess it didn’t escape my notice your heart still lies with the prince — not that having more than one lover appears to bother you._ ”

I stopped in my tracks. _How dare you?_

“ _Forget about Pascal Kaladan, Miss Ban. His family’s dynasty has a deeper secret than you know. I advise you not to be a part of it._ ”

Before I could ask what he meant, I noticed Valarr holding his head and trembling on the opposite end of camp from me. I made my way over to him, picking my way across rocks and over pooling water in potholes.

“You doing okay over here?” I asked, trying to keep concern out of my voice.

“I’m fine,” he managed.

“ _He does not look fine._ ”

I ignored Astrine and gave Valarr a long, steady look. He met my eyes briefly, then looked away.

“Just... you know,” he said. “Caves.”

Taking him by the shoulders, I met his eyes again. “Valarr. You’re here with us now.”

“No, no. _She’s_ here. I feel her. Like spiderwebs in my head—”

“It’s a memory, Valarr,” I reassured him, but took a moment to feel around the cavern with my magic just in case. There was nothing. “Your goddess found her way to you and brought you here. You’re safe now.”

He looked absolutely grey. I let him lean against the wall, but kept one of his hands and stayed with him until the feeling passed.

We heard a skittering in the tunnels; Shala appeared near us. She curled up at Valarr’s feet like a cat, that broad, feral grin on her face, and spoke a few words in Undercommon. I watched Valarr relax and close his eyes.

“What did she say?” I asked.

“These tunnels don’t go any deeper underground,” he sighed in relief.

When the others began to stir hours later, they produced the equipment they’d grabbed off the fallen pirates after the battle in one last act of camaraderie before we moved on. Gimbal, with her ever-analytical eye, looked over the weapons.

Most of them went to Orre, who had the capacity and the desire to carry extra weapons, including what appeared to be some kind of harpoon gun with a chain. Only a strange blue rapier remained. It was passed to me.

I opened my bag to stow it. “...My other rapier is missing.”

We looked around. Shala cowered in the corner with an embarrassed, pouting face.

“Shala,” Nickel warned.

Gimbal said, “Give it back. It’s not yours to take.”

The lizard woman chittered angrily. Nickel went after her, and before Shala could flee, he wrestled her to the ground and lifted her up by one ankle. He shook her. A menagerie of strange objects fell from her hair, clattering to the floor — knives, cooking supplies, small worthless trinkets, a skull. Finally, my heirloom sword fell to the ground, its hilt glinting with jewels.

“Thank you,” I said, picking it up.

Nickel released the woman, and she ran for the strange skull in a panic, shouting, “Gran-Gran!”

Oh.

Without another word about it, we cleaned up our campsite and went on our way. The dwarvish guard Grant led the way.

Not long after we departed, the tunnel began to move upwards. We felt a distant movement of air. Shala became agitated, bidding us a loud farewell before slinking into a deeper crevice.

Our morale boosted at this new evidence we drew closer to the surface. Grant was able to navigate without the need for maps. We watched him stop to place a hand on the wall occasionally, then resume leading. Whatever he was looking for, I realized, our path seemed to be always shifting. These tunnels weren’t your average cave system. They moved and changed.

“Is this some kind of magic?” I mused to myself.

Orre overheard me. “I know nothing of how these tunnels work. I was on the plane of earth, then I walked into the caves hunting the worm, and then I was here.”

Fascinated, I nodded.

There was a sudden THWACK. The force of an impact threw me to the ground. A weight sat atop me, pinning me to the earth. I yelped.

“Oh! Piscín! How are you?” A familiar voice chirped.

Valarr yelled, “Francesca, _what_ are you _doing_?”

“Get _OFF_ of me!” I shouted simultaneously.

“I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” The Lady Francesca Landon herself stepped off of the small of my back. “Valarr, hey, how’s it going? How are you?”

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve been trying to save us. I’m just trying to help.”

We pushed her for further information, but Frankie kept repeating that she’d been “saving our lives” and “keeping us from getting killed.” While this was happening, however, the guards drew their weapons and encircled Frankie, reacting to her with immediate hostility.

Frankie held up her hands. “Whoa, whoa, you guys… Look, that was just something that had to be done. You understand, right?”

Burch nocked an arrow.

“Guys, she’s stupid, she doesn’t know what she’s saying,” Gimbal protested.

The blonde human raised his eyebrows. “Oh, stupid, that’s great.”

“She’s not going to hurt anyone,” Valarr shouted, holding out his hands and standing in front of Frankie. “We won’t let her.”

The guards scoffed. “You won’t let her? You’ll take full responsibility?”

“Yes. She is my full responsibility,” He replied.

The guards deliberated among themselves quietly. I heard echoes of discussion — some of them were adamantly opposed to Frankie’s presence, while others were willing to cooperate until they could get away — and finally the guards came back to us content to follow along for now. Their one request was that we keep Frankie away from them.

With that, Burch and the other guards walked ahead of us. Gimbal skipped ahead and joined them, walking alongside Grant.

They led us through a part of a cavern that dipped down, then rose again. Grant threw a look back at us and grunted, “We’re taking a different way to the surface so we don’t appear in the middle of the city.”

Valarr went back to interrogating Frankie, but she continued to deflect his questions and give non-answers. Finally, throwing a look my way, she snapped, “I’m sorry, do you want me to give away _more_ secrets and ruin our lives again?”

I stared at her in scandalized silence.

“Francesca, be nice,” Valarr warned. “She was just doing what she thought was best. We’re a team.”

I took a deep breath and exhaled. “I’m gonna kill her.”

Valarr continued, “Now, say you’re sorry. To the guards and to Piscín.”

Frankie kicked at the dirt floor, pouting. “…Sorry.”

“Thank you, Francesca.”

We dipped down to where the caverns met the water again, with springs of salt water flowing in through low crevasses. I heard the sound of something cresting, breaking the surface of the waves, followed by a wet, slithering sound on hard ground.

All of us heard this coming from different directions, and we whirled to follow the noise. We’d been surrounded by sea-dwelling monsters resembling twisted, misshapen versions of merfolk. They brandished weapons at us, hissing.


	21. Day 6, Part 2: Safe House

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Burch leads Gimbal and Piscín to the spies' safe house, while Frankie and the others head to the inn.

The creatures attacked first, plunging into the midst of our party. They landed a hit on Frankie, then missed Gimbal. Frankie slung magic at the monster that attacked her, but failed; Orre charged full speed ahead at the one nearest him, giving a ferocious shout as he slashed his greatsword across the chest of his target. Nickel blasted one of the creatures with a ray of frost. It fell back into the water.

I unsheathed my new rapier and, twirling it by the hilt, summoned the Bladesong from deep in me. As I pierced the hide of the creature nearest to me, the blade of the weapon sparked. The monster before me was wreathed in lightning, shrieking in pain. Valarr followed up my attack with a slash, but failed to land a hit.

Across the cavern from me, Gimbal screeched, “Ellie, kill it!” as she scrambled off her griffin’s back. Ellie whirled to snap at one of the creatures, but missed, nipping Gimbal instead. The gnome stumbled back. She recovered, however, and threw a stone imbued with acid towards the monster. It spat and screamed from the acidic burn. Ellie continued to guard Gimbal and attack the creatures encroaching upon the two of them.

The blonde human guard landed a solid hit on one of the monsters, while the tiefling took a jab at the beast before him with his polearm. Burch let an arrow fly. It ricocheted harmlessly off a stalactite above us. The creatures retaliated. One of them gouged Grant with its talons. Another dropped its rusted sword and pivoted in a circle with its claws out. The fighters around it all managed to step back, evading its blows. The guards continued to close in, keeping their backs together and fighting as a unit.

Frankie moved towards the guards, crouching to kiss Grant on the cheek and imbuing him with a healing spell. He recoiled, but his wound closed. Nearby, Nickel swung his warhammer and missed.

I cast Misty Step and teleported across the cavern, throwing out a whip of lightning and dragging the creature near Nickel towards me. It shrieked as I dragged it, seizing from the electricity. Burch aimed a shot at the creature as I had it in my grasp, nailing him directly in the back.

Frankie fired off blasts of crackling energy somewhere in the middle of the battlefield, taking down a few of our enemies. I heard one of the guards’ weapons connect with a creature’s hide with a loud _crack;_ it was the tiefling, and he pulled his barbed spear out of his enemy’s flesh, leaving behind a gushing wound. The dwarf’s morning star slammed into the monster. It staggered, then collapsed.

I readied my rapier to attack the creature in my grasp. It let out a howling scream and rattled, fizzling into a pile of dry ashes at my feet. With that, I shot off to the other end of the fight and slid in to attack the one remaining creature – the one being faced down by Gimbal and Ellie. With a few choice stabs, the monster collapsed. The last one.

We backed up from the bodies at our feet, panting and sheathing our weapons. A close look at the monsters told us they were merrow, most likely native to the caverns here. Some of us picked up and inspected their weapons, along with any belongings they might have on their bodies. The guards quickly hustled everyone along. We eyed the underwater crevasses in case more merrow came after us.

“Wait, where are we going?” Frankie asked.

“To my house,” Burch said with a wink.

She nodded slowly. “We need to go… somewhere else.”

I shot her a look. “And where might that be, Frankie?”

“We’re supposed to be meeting with Grinfish,” she hissed to me in Elvish.

I stepped back. How long had she been listening in on Valarr and I’s conversations without mentioning she spoke Elvish? I gave Valarr a look, and he shrugged.

Frankie turned to Burch. “What do you want with my friends?”

“Well, I don’t want them to kill each other, that’s for sure.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

Burch smiled flatly. “Yep.”

I sensed mounting tension. Orre looked from Frankie to Burch while cleaning his weapon.

“I tried to convince them Grinfish would vouch for us,” the genasi told Frankie.

In the midst of our arguing, the guards managed to find a crack in the cliffside through which moonlight filtered, tinging the rocks a dark, eerie blue. We squeezed out on the opposite side of the Bay from where we entered. Night was upon us, but I could tell from the gradually lightening strip of green at the horizon that morning would come soon. Salty sea air swept up into our faces. We need to get where we were going, and fast.

“We’ll make a quick stop back at my place before we head back to the House,” Burch called. “I want to check back in with the missus.”

Frankie stopped us again. “Wait, I still don’t understand where we’re going. I’m not going with the guards. I want to go to the inn.”

We groaned.

Valarr said, “Francesca, maybe we can split up. Some of us can go to Burch’s place with the guards. Others will go to the inn.”

After some deliberation and a bit more squabbling, we decided Gimbal and I would go with the guards and Burch, and everyone else would follow Frankie to the inn. I still had the tracker stone, after all, as well as a Dimension Door spell, so it would easy enough for me to find them – and Grinfish.

Gimbal and I both polymorphed ourselves into disguises – her taking the appearance of a male halfling, and myself disguised as a generic-looking human woman – while Burch seemed to slip into stealth as if it were second nature to him. The three of us, with the three guards behind us, slunk through the city streets, trying to bring as little attention to ourselves as possible.

Finally, we stopped in front of a strikingly normal-looking suburban home. Burch turned to us and said, “Give me a moment. I should go first and greet my wife.”

He opened the door, and the inside seemed just as nondescript, but pleasantly attractive as the outside – well-kept and clean but ultimately uninteresting. Burch took off his coat and placed his shoes neatly by the welcome mat.

“Honey, I’m home!”

A woman popped around the corner, holding her arms in the air. “Oh, thank goodness!”

She came walking towards him, and I noted that she seemed almost… out of place in such an utterly normal house. The woman herself was roughly Burch’s age – late 40s, maybe early to mid 50s – but particularly tall and of a wiry frame. Beneath her dress was a distinctly athletic, hardened build, with patches of scarred tissue on her flesh. Her hair was a tousled mop of copper.

Burch said, “Come on in for a hug. How was the weather recently?”

“The weather was, well, a bit...” His wife considered her words thoughtfully. “Ahh… just a tad gloomy.”

“Well, there’s no room for that in this household.” Burch slammed the door shut behind us. “Everybody up!”

The illusion of the totally normal house fell off the walls. Everything was poured concrete. The woman in front of us was no longer carefully coiffed to look like a housewife, but wore armor and practical gear. She had a drawn weapon in her hand. The potted plants were crouching guards armed with crossbows.

The woman shouted, authoritatively, “Burke, you missed your check-in! What the fuck!”

Burch saluted. “Yes, sir, ma’am!”

“Drop and give me fifty _right now_.”

He fell to the ground immediately and obeyed her.

“Now _EXPLAIN_!” The woman’s voice raised, becoming a shrill, booming shriek of fury.

I immediately raised my hands and dropped my polymorph disguise in fear.

“Ma’am! We were trapped in the tunnels!”

“Belfast sent me down into the tunnels. He knew it was me,” Burch explained, stumbling over words in distress. “They saved my life. You will not believe where these people have been. You want answers! UGH. FOUR!”

He continued to explain what had happened between pained cries and push-ups. Without answering Burch at all, the woman stomped past him right up to Gimbal, picked up the gnome, and shook her.

“Explain yourselves!” She commanded.

Gimbal screamed. “Ahh — I, uh! I don’t know! I’m bad under pressure!”

The woman dropped her, stepped back, closed her eyes, took a deep and meditative breath, exhaled, and opened her eyes again. She smiled. It was scary. “Sorry about that. Breathe. It’s been a stressful week. Why don’t we all just calm down and have a little chat?”


	22. Day 6, Part 3: Pardoned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Piscín and Gimbal manage to talk the leader of the Crown's spies into pardoning the group and allying with them.

When his “wife” instructed us to relax, Burch attempted to rest on the floor. She pointed at him and shouted, “You keep going! And you,” she gestured to Gimbal. “Sit on him.”

Gimbal, still disguised as a halfling, took a seat on Burch’s back. He groaned.

“How are you still disguised?” The woman asked. Before Gimbal could respond, she yelled, “Someone of this level of talent, why is she not on my team?”

Gimbal, unsure of how to respond, garbled something terrified and unintelligible.

The woman turned and eyed me. “How about you tell me the story Burke just failed to tell me, and this time you make some gods-damned sense?”

“...Eighteen...”

“We got a lead on where some pirates might be waiting down in the tunnels,” I told her, voice shaking. “Obviously we couldn’t do it alone, so we tried to strike a deal with Belfast. He gives us guards, we lead us to the pirates. Things got a bit hairy. During the battle with the pirates, some kind of elemental worm monster broke through—”

Burch’s — Burke’s? — superior officer blanched.

“It was banished by a member of our group, but the pirates escaped.”

“Who did the banishing?”

Unwilling to give up more information about my companions than I already had, I looked away from her. She realized I wasn’t going to betray my companions and gave an amused snort.

The woman nudged Burch with her foot. “Get up.”

He collapsed under Gimbal, panting and groaning on the concrete floor. A few of the other agents in the house ran over to Burch, grinning, then kneeled down and began hitting the floor beside him, saying, “Thirty-one… thirty-two…” Burch politely told them to “shut the fuck up.”

Gimbal got up from Burch and waved towards the House guards who had accompanied us. “These guards were ordered to come with us by Belfast. They’re just doing their jobs. They are good men. Maybe you could give them an out?”

The tiefling and the blonde human looked hopeful, while Grant appeared furious.

The superior officer snapped her fingers. “We have empty cells for this, correct? What are the most comfortable cells I have? Be nice, don’t be intrusive, but get me answers.” She turned back to stare hard at the guards. “They do not leave unless I get an answer.”

The House guards were swept away down the hall by agents.

The woman pointed at me. She was much taller than me. I staggered back, caught off guard. “Moon elf. You’re a mage. What did the banishing?”

Burch mentioned, “The Warforged was named Nickel, Commander Robriquez.”

“Look, we’re specialized. We don’t care about the petty shit,” The commander said, sidling up to Gimbal. “We just want to change the paradigm. Who was this?”

We stayed silent.

“Belfast is causing issues,” she continued. “His presumption irritates the Crown.”

“Very irritating, ma’am.” Burch nodded enthusiastically.

“We’d like to dispose of him in such a way that he is no longer an impediment to the Crown in any significant manner,” The commander expressed. “If we can get to it without killing him, all the better. Right now he controls all the levers of power in the area, and we want to take it away, but if it has to be by killing him, we’ll do that.”

“We want that too, ma’am,” Gimbal said.

“But if we can get him on our side without killing him, all the better. If we can get him to retire to a nice island, fine! I just want him out of our way.”

“He has luck on his side,” I mentioned. “Tymora.”

“Order prevails over luck,” she declared.

“Ma’am, if I may?” Burch cleared his throat. “They mentioned the dark god the pirates serve is Black Bess, or Beshaba. The goddess of misfortune.”

“I’m assuming you are no friends of the pirates,” The commander addressed us.

Gimbal shrieked, “No, ma’am.”

“We’ve had a few encounters with Thalia,” I said. “Not aligned with her, though she wished us to join her. She may be more unhappy with us than Belfast is.”

Commander Robriguez grabbed some of the agents nearest her, whispering harshly and gesturing around the room. Several of the agents ran off and then reemerged, carrying cushioned chairs and setting them on the floor.

“We have so much to talk about,” The commander said, flashing us a cordial smile as she plopped down in one of the chairs.

Exhausted from traveling in the caves for days, I all but threw myself on one of the chairs. Gimbal, who saw she had little choice, joined me but shook in skittish terror.

“Bring out the wine,” She called, waving people out to the main area. “We need to chat.”

As the agents brought out wine, I noted Commander Robriguez was blatantly not drinking. I sniffed at the glass and took a sip, not noticing anything unusual. When a few of the other agents began drinking out of the same bottle, I cautiously allowed myself to drink a few conservative sips here and there.

One of the agents sat down directly next to me with a wine glass and a smile. I gave him a look. “Really? Right now?”

“If it works,” he mused, shrugging.

“Now, you guys have information that I would very, very much like to have,” Robriguez began. “I am not afraid to admit that. We are willing to treat you with the utmost respect. Please, anything you feel comfortable divulging, you will reduce the suffering of this population immensely.”

As if on cue, the end of her speech was punctuated by a horrific noise that sounded partway between a screech and a ghoulish howl. It came from a closed door near the back. The door was coated in childish, colorful, taped drawings of hearts, flowers, smiley faces, and stick-people.

Commander Robriguez gnashed her teeth. “That was in no way helpful.”

“What… was that?” Gimbal ventured.

“A… tool. Something I would rather not have to use.” The commander became agitated and yelled, “We seriously need to sound-proof that fucking room!”

One of the agents sadly lamented, “But then we couldn’t hear her…”

“She’d be lonely,” Another piped up.

“Marigold’s the best,” Burch said, nodding.

The guy next to me leaned in, addressing me with an amused grin, “You had to spend days in the tunnel with _Burke_?”

I took a panicked gulp of my wine.

“No offense but I don’t know how cooperative I’m feeling anymore,” Gimbal said. “We just heard a pretty weird noise back there.”

A look of profound fury crossed the commander’s face.

“Ma’am!” Burch interrupted. “Please. I can demonstrate.”

Burch walked over to the human seated beside me.

“Tell me that thing about my sister again,” Burch said.

The guy leaned over and whispered something to him. Burch cringed in disgust. He knocked on the door papered with childlike drawings, and we heard another shrill, screaming roar. Commander Robriguez visibly winced.

“Marigold, make me forget what Akron just told me,” Burch yelled.

The door slammed open. Massive plant-like vine tendrils curled around Burch and yanked him inside. After a few minutes of unearthly howling and pained shrieking, Burch reemerged from the room, unsticking one last tendril from his face. He blinked, dazed, and shut the door behind him.

He looked around at us, seemingly confused, then scowled and pointed at Akron. “Did he tell me that thing about my sister again?!”

“No,” The commander said with a smile. Burch gave a tight-lipped nod and patted the door, almost affectionately.

“Okay,” Gimbal said, pinching the bridge of her nose, “But why the drawings?”

Burch looked hurt. “She’s great.”

“Nobody gets hurt, see?” The commander said. “They just… forget.”

“You didn’t think we tied up loose ends like pirates, did you?” Burch asked, coming back to sit with us.

Taking a seat on the other side of me, Burch took some of the tobacco out of his pocket and began rolling it. He lit the cigarette and went to take a smoke, but I took it out of his fingers and took a hit myself. Burch winked; Akron shot him a pointed glare.

“What exactly do you want us to do?” I asked.

The commander outlined the fairly simple plan to us. Burch – who was frequently referred to by the other agents as “Burke,” “Butch,” “Burt,” and various other similar names – would remain stationed nearby, and occasionally appear to help us. Our end of the deal was just to not get involved if they moved in on Belfast.

“As long as you clear our records,” I said.

“And what did you do?”

“Nothing,” I told the commander. “False accusations.”

“Sounds good,” She told me slowly, with a broad smile. “In any case, we’re all friends here now. The other agents will cooperate if I tell them to.”

“She does outrank me,” Burch said. “I think? Do you outrank me?”

“I know _I_ outrank you,” Akron chimed in.

“I can’t remember what rank I am, to be honest,” One of the other agents said.

The commander looked annoyed. “Jones, fuck off.”

When we were free to go, Akron tried to convince me to show him where the inn was — and, presumably, follow me inside — but Gimbal recognized the wine had done a number on me. She shooed him away.

“Are you kidding? Bring him inside, Dysus will kill us,” she said.

I told Akron with a mischievous tone, “Maybe if I’m still alive after all this is over.”

He grinned and raised his glass. Gimbal dragged me outside, pausing to command Ellie to follow. I stumbled and giggled while she rambled, half at me and half to herself, and we somehow found our way back to the Lazy Eye.


	23. Day 6, Part 4: Reception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Back at the inn, Frankie makes a big announcement, and the group takes the night off.

As soon as we entered the inn, Teeth locked terrified eyes with us and pointed at the stairs. He shook his head. Gimbal and I exchanged a nervous look, but took the stairs and were able to pass through the ward to Dysus’ chambers on the second floor. We were guided down the corridor by the voices of our companions. Grinfish opened the door and welcomed us inside his room.

Frankie was seated on the bed, and Grinfish sat down on the floor at her feet. The others sat or stood throughout the room; I moved to stand near Valarr.

“We’ve taken care of the guards and their memories,” I told them.

“We have a new plan,” Frankie told us excitedly. “We are going to stop all the bad guys and then escape.”

I asked Grinfish, “What are we doing?”

He grinned and gave a summary of what the others already heard. Apparently, the new plan was this: to steal an artifact of Beshaba back from the House. “If Tymora has her coin and Beshaba has her antlers, then the two will meet for an inevitable battle,” he explained, “and then reunite as one ancient goddess, Tyche. They come back together, all of our problems go away, and we leave.”

Gimbal and I looked at one another, but Grinfish didn’t seem deceitful in any way.

“Where exactly are you getting this information?” Gimbal asked.

Grinfish gestured across the hall towards Dysus’s library.

“I feel like you two have done enough damage,” Frankie snapped, insulted at our questioning. “You should listen to Grinfish. Where even were you?”

“I got us pardoned. Our criminal records have been wiped,” I told her.

“The Crown,” Grinfish mused. “Will they help us?”

“They just want to get at Belfast, and they want us to stay out of their way. Nothing more.”

“For this cause, we’re all on the same side,” Gimbal chimed in. “Maybe not lifelong allies, but.”

“Were you looking to make me a lifelong ally?” Grinfish asked, blinking lazily and laughing a bit.

He squeezed Frankie’s foot affectionately. Gimbal looked down at his hand and up at Frankie, then over at me. Now that Gimbal had called my attention to it, I did notice that Grinfish was being more friendly with Frankie than he had been before.

I felt the familiar ear-popping sensation I associated with Astrine. His voice echoed in my ears, saying, “ _Please do not read too much into it, Miss Bán. You will spend lifetimes trying to understand people like them_.”

I stifled a grimace.

“In any case, I know where the antlers might be,” Grinfish said. “The Smiling Lady was built on top of an older building that I am more familiar with.”

Gimbal considered this. “We need some time so I can make a hand for Valarr.”

Grinfish stood and walked over to a closet on the side of the room, picking leather armor out of the closet. I noticed the armor was crafted out of an exotic animal hide. He threw a sly glance back at us, saying, “Mer,” as he held up the armor.

He tossed the armor down in front of Gimbal. “Can you make this stronger? Protect me better.”

“I don’t know,” she said uncertainly. “I could take it to my guild hall tomorrow.”

Grinfish took the armor away from her and handed her a glove. “Take this instead. Same material, but I would rather the glove go missing than the armor. Also…” He turned his attention to all of us as a group, “your rent may have gone up.”

“We could bunk together,” Orre said in response to this.

“I’m staying with Grinfish,” Frankie announced. She squealed suddenly, then clapped her hands. “Okay, I have to tell you guys! Guess what?”

“What?” said Valarr, barely awake at this point.

“We got married!”

We fell silent, staring at her in shock.

“Wh… what? Did you really?” Gimbal asked.

“Thank you!” Frankie held out her hand, clearly not registering the bewildered question. A ring with a large, glinting pearl was on her ring finger. Despite the circumstances, I couldn’t help but admire it.

A few of the others passed around their congratulations, and we began to filter out of the room, processing everything that had happened over the course of the morning. Frankie was very insistent that everyone buy her gifts. I offered to take her shopping again in one last ditch attempt to have my sword looked at by a smith; however, I was utterly exhausted, and began to head out in search of food, drink, and a room with the others. 

In the bar area, Valarr sidled up next to me. “Hey. You’re in the clear. Dysus was angry, but the eye kept her from killing us, at least.”

I relaxed. “Thank you.”

“Man, I can’t believe you guys pulled that off,” Teeth interrupted. He set down a couple shots in front of us. “After all that, you deserve a drink.”

Valarr eyed them. “This isn’t what you gave us last time, is it?”

Teeth grinned. “Nah. I’m not wastin’ something that good on you two weaklings again.”

I flicked the bartender a few silver as a tip, then held my shot glass aloft. “A toast?”

“With shot glasses?” Valarr raised an eyebrow.

“Why the hell not?” I said. “Then — once again, to making it out of here alive.”

“And to my traveling companion’s wedding,” He added with a playful smile.

“Of course. I need to be far drunker than I currently am to make it through this reception, by the way.”

We laughed and threw our heads back, dumping liquor into our open mouths.

The afternoon passed. Our party was the patrons’ main source of entertainment; a few days stuck down in the tunnels after a handful of near-death experiences made us ripe for celebration, I suppose. Frankie was overjoyed to finally be able to freely drape herself over Grinfish. Her music was festive, summoning more than a few to the dance floor.

At some point during the afternoon, Dru began to pace the inn, scowling. I saw him pointing and yelling at a confused Teeth. Occasionally, he would storm off barking orders to the other bouncers on staff. I shrugged and continued dancing.

Patrons crowded the inn by late afternoon, attracted to the sound of laughter and music. I became acutely aware of a small band of dark-clothed strangers weaving in and out of the dancers. Some wore masks; those who didn’t looked like pale gray, tattooed elves with black eyes. They laughed loudly, drank recklessly, and had no qualms about punching someone in the mouth if they gave them trouble. Every time Dru came running they would scatter, cackling and making vulgar gestures.

One of them popped up next to me from under the table. “Hey, moon elf, you do the magic thing right? We got some tobacco if you got a light.”

“I’m not a matchbox,” I scoffed, perhaps a little too confidently.

She threw her head back and laughed. “I like it! Hold onto that attitude, little lady!”

With that, she was running off to another table to heckle other patrons for a match.

Later during the night, Valarr and I sat by the bar counter, discussing whether to grab a room together to split rent. Teeth gave us an eyebrow waggle. We brushed it off.

Suddenly, the music stopped. Dru let out a furious roar at the tallest of the masked troublemakers. The hobgoblin heaved his glaive into the air. Instead of finding its target, the weapon came down onto the repaired round table crushed under Orre’s weight just a few nights ago, and the abused table collapsed. I blinked in surprise; the stranger moved so quickly I hadn’t even seen him slip out of the way.

“I told you to stay the hell out of our bar,” Dru growled.

“We’re not even doing anything,” The stranger protested, albeit with a playful tone under his mask. “We’re just here for a good time.”

Dru lifted his glaive from the splintered wood. “I’m talking about you, specifically, you asshole.”

Valarr and I slapped gold on the bar counter. Teeth tossed us the key to a room. We bolted down the hallway just as the first blows of a fight broke out.

When the door closed behind us, we stood, panting, in the room. It was quiet until we succumbed to fits of incredulous giggling. I felt light-headed and warm, and I had to hold onto his arm to steady myself.

With a deep breath, I looked up at Valarr. “What’s happening here? Should we try this?”

Valarr gave me a considerate look. After a beat, he leaned in and kissed me. We withdrew, stared at each other for a speechless moment, and burst into another bout of laughter.

“Never do that again,” I said.

“Agreed. Damn,” he sighed. “It’s just not there.”

“After this is over, I’ll take you to the nearest moon elf encampment and introduce you to some cute elves. How’s that?”

“Deal.”

It was at this moment, with Valarr and I standing close to one another, only one bed in the room, that Orre ever-so-gracefully kicked the door in. The genasi stood in the doorway, covered in nicks and gouges. He oozed metallic silver from his wounds.

“I have been accepted by a tribe of warriors—” He began, then stopped. “Ah, an elven mating ritual. Forgive me.”

He closed the door behind him.

“Should we go after him and find out what’s going on?” Valarr asked.

“Ha. Nah. Let’s get some rest.”

We rolled into bed together, fully-clothed and exhausted, and slipped into a deep trance.


	24. Day 7: Running Errands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The party makes preparations to follow through with Grinfish's plan. Piscín, meanwhile, has an important talk with Frankie.

The next morning, the tables and chairs were repaired as if nothing had happened.

“Getting real damn tired of people starting fights in this bar,” Teeth grouched as he served us breakfast the next morning. “Ever since you guys showed up—”

“That had nothin’ to do with us,” Nickel objected. He gestured to Orre. “Just this one.”

“I won the contest!”

Gimbal pointed at Orre with her fork. “There is no contest.”

“Then why did the strange elves congratulate me for beating them?” He asked.

“Because they were weird! I don’t know!”

I listened with amused interest, my fingers laced under my chin as I pieced together details from the previous evening. When the fight broke out, the tall stranger’s band joined in, and Orre took the opportunity to leap into the fray as well. Thankfully, Dru interpreted Orre’s involvement as help rather than the frenzied glee of a man obsessed with proving his strength at every opportunity. The last thing we needed was to piss off the inn staff mere hours after earning forgiveness.

“Valarr!”

Frankie, who had slept in, came stomping down the stairs with her hands on her hips.

Valarr froze mid-bite, then put his fork down. “Yes, Francesca?”

“I was having a party and you two left because you were matt-ing or whatever.”

I coughed loudly and covered my mouth. Was she trying to say “mating”? Had Orre told her what he had seen?

“You wouldn’t let Piscín come to my party,” she whined, her voice growing louder. “Matt-ing is not more important than me!”

Valarr couldn’t stop himself from choking back a snort. The cooks from the kitchen poked their heads out to watch the altercation.

“Don’t laugh! You have to make it up to me.”

I chimed in, a note of barely-contained laughter in my voice, “How are we going to do that, Frankie?”

“I want even better gifts. The best gifts,” Frankie said, clearly thinking very hard about her response, “You all have to go and search for them. I’m gonna be really mad!”

I turned to Valarr and said, my voice low, “Does she... not know?”

He shook his head.

“Do I not know what?” Frankie was indignant.

“What matting is.”

Teeth covered his mouth and turned around.

“Why would I know what matting is?”

This made Orre incredibly confused. “You are married, correct?”

“Why would I know what matting is because of Grinfish?” She scowled, then looked thoughtful. “Grinfish swims. Is it like swimming? Wait!”

Frankie turned to stare at Valarr and I, scandalized. “You went swimming without me?!”

“Speaking of Grinfish,” Gimbal interrupted, turning to Teeth. “Hey, Teeth. Is Grinfish’s real name really Egrin?”

Freezing in the middle of wiping down the bar counter, Teeth shot a nervous glance around the room, only responding when he didn’t see any prying eyes. “Yep.”

“Is he really Egrin Dreed, then?”

“We’re all Dreed,” he replied. “Teeth Dreed. Dru Dreed. Dysus Dreed.”

“I didn’t know your last name was Dreed!” Frankie was immediately distracted. She clasped her hands together in delight. “Are we related? Are you my brother-in-law?”

“Why the hell would I tell you my last—” He threw his rag on the counter. “We are not related! It’s a clan name! Dysus picked me up a few years ago. She won Egrin in a card game—”

Gimbal squinted. “Why did Dysus want you?”

“I ain’t never talked to somebody what served me food an’ gave me shelter like that,” Nickel muttered. “Y’all’re rude.”

Teeth gave her an offended look, then pointed. “Out. Now.”

We were tossed out of the dining area in short order. After a quick discussion in the hallway of the inn, we decided to get started on our errands for the day. Frankie ran to fetch Grinfish (or, I suppose, Egrin). When she returned, Egrin was nowhere to be found, but Frankie looked unusually repentant.

“I’m sorry for getting mad at you about the royal spies in the tunnels,” she said, looking at the floor and kicking her feet. “Dysus and Grinfish said it was okay.”

I raised my eyebrows, but before I could respond, she grabbed my arm.

“Anyway, you said you were gonna go shopping with me, right?”

Remembering my promise to her the previous morning, I closed my eyes, put on my most accommodating smile, and nodded. “You are absolutely right, Frankie.”

In the end, Valarr and I decided we’d be accompanying Frankie to the market, while Orre would temporarily leave us to go with Nickel and Gimbal to the guild hall to upgrade their weapons and armor.

“I’d also like to get in touch with an old friend, see if she can help me come up with ideas for Valarr’s prosthetic hand,” Gimbal mused.

We departed, going our separate ways; despite the success of Frankie’s performance a few days ago, Valarr hid himself underneath his wood elf disguise. The last thing we needed was for a House guard to recognize us and report back to Belfast. Oddly, no one seemed to take notice of us much at all, for which I was thankful.

Valarr, Frankie, and I perused the market. Thrilled to be out and about in daylight again, Frankie took both our arms and chattered with no real purpose or direction.

“Anyway, let’s look for gifts,” she said. “You guys should get gifts for Grinfish, too.”

I put my hand under my coat, touching the hilt of my father’s sword. “Actually, I’d like to find a way to combine the sword passed down to me with the electric rapier we found in the tunnels.”

“Or you could buy a sword encrusted with gems!”

“Actually, let’s do gifts first,” Valarr hastily interrupted before Frankie had the chance to get carried away.

A terrible idea crossed my mind. I smiled, unable to hold it in. “Hey, Frankie, maybe you could be the gift for Grinfish. You want to know more about matting, right?”

Valarr shot me an exasperated look. I pressed my lips tight together to desperately hold back a mischievous burst of laughter.

“I’ll explain,” I told her. “I want to show you what bridal lingerie looks like.”

“Is that a good present?”

“It depends if this is really what you want to do.”

Frankie looked quite serious. “I want to know what matting is.”

I put my arm around her shoulder. “Then I need to explain something to you. It’s not really called ‘matting,’ it’s mating. And people don’t usually call it that. There’s lots of words for it, but...”

And that’s how I explained sex to a 20-year-old woman in the middle of the Market while her paladin father-figure looked at me like he wanted to kill me.

Frankie began to cry. “I don’t want a fish in my tummy!”

“You aren’t going to have a fish in your tummy,” I assured her. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, including having a baby just because you’re married. I’ll teach you how to brew some special teas we moon elves use—”

“Ohhh, dear goddess,” Valarr muttered, reaching out to stop me.

I gave him a look. “She needs to know how to protect herself—”

“What does this bridal lingerie stuff have to do with the sex thing?” Frankie crossed her arms and pouted.

I told her, “Often, when people get married, they get a special kind of beautiful undergarments to look special for their spouse. Kind of like the pretty, lacy, sparkly things you wear onstage, but... less of it.”

She immediately perked up. “I like sparkly things!” Lacing her arm through mine again, Frankie grinned. “You are my best friend.”

Valarr pressed his thumb and forefinger to his eyelids. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

He loosened up eventually, especially after we found a pair of elderly sun elves who worked as tailors. They were quite professional, taking her measurements, making pleasant conversation, and indulging Frankie’s excited requests. As soon as they began to bring out different colors, materials, and accents, the girl happily selected her favorite options.

For a brief moment, I wondered if Frankie had ever had a friend near her age. She looked so carefree — vulnerable, impressionable — there at the market, like a normal girl on a normal holiday to the coast. It made me worried about Egrin’s intentions with her. I shook the idea out of my mind. She’d spent the night in his room multiple times, and he hadn’t made a move, so clearly the man had no underhanded intentions in that capacity.

After wrapping up our order for the lingerie, the three of us found a smithy. The dwarven woman at the anvil paused in her work to talk to us. She happily confirmed she could combine my heirloom hilt with the lightning rapier’s blade, then spoke with Valarr about crafting heavier, tougher armor for him. When he asked for their priciest armor, her eyes widened.

“Yep, we’ll definitely rush this order out for you guys,” The smith told us. “Check back tomorrow.”

I nodded, then turned to Valarr. “We should meet up with the others at the guild hall.”


	25. Day 8, Part 1: The Alchemist

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gimbal's friend Kel makes a prosthetic hand for Valarr.

When we got to the guild hall, we found out the others had had their own version of the “birds-and-the-bees” talk with Orre, except instead of having to outline the entire concept of intimacy to him, they had to explain the concept of sex work.

“I’m sorry, Orre is doing what?” Valarr looked like he was halfway to snapping.

Gimbal squeaked, “He ran out of money, so he advertised himself to some cat-like woman?”

“Like a tabaxi?”

“No, she was more human than that.” The gnome waved her hand in front of her face. “Looked like a human woman, except... spikier.”

“A Razorclaw Shifter,” I offered.

“Yeah, that one. Oh, and she also had, like, a lot of drugs.”

I took a deep breath to keep myself calm. “Okay, well, Orre can take care of himself. Gimbal, did you figure out what we’re going to do about Valarr’s hand?”

We followed Gimbal to another artisan’s stall in the guild, but by this point, it was getting late in the day and many of the guild members were beginning to leave. Her booth looked less like a booth and more like a solid back cube. I couldn’t even find a doorknob on the very flat, black door. When we knocked, thin turquoise lights pulsed across the surface of the cube in patterns.

“Looks like Kel’s not here,” Gimbal sighed. “I wonder if she got the note I left when I went to the library. Gods, that seems like forever ago. Well, guess I’ll leave another one.”

She scribbled another quick note and stuck it to the cube. Gimbal and Nickel stayed at the guild hall; Gimbal was planning on pulling an all-nighter, while Nickel was just as comfortable in the corner of her booth as he was in any inn room. Besides, they’d been staying in Orre’s room, which was otherwise occupied at the moment.

Valarr, Frankie, and I headed back to the inn. When we arrived, Teeth greeted us with a playful look.

“So, the big guy got a shot at Sybil, huh?” He chuckled. “Might wanna check on him. She left awhile ago, but I haven’t heard a peep outta him.”

Teeth tossed a plate of food our way to take to Orre. Valarr and I exchanged looks.

“Francesca, stay here and tell Teeth about your trip to the Market today,” Valarr said.

As soon as she was suitably distracted, the two of us took the plate down the hall and knocked on Orre’s door.

We heard a rustling, then loud footfalls, followed by the door flinging wide open. Orre, half-naked and holding his sword, stood in the doorway. His eyes were very, very dilated. He held out his weapon and stared at it for a very long time, then looked down at us.

“IS IT NOT BEAUTIFUL?” He boomed.

There was grass in Orre’s hair and sand crusted on his feet. We peered past him and could see all of his weapons out, lying all over the floor, as well as a discarded pile of burnt plants in the corner. The drugs.

“Ooh, Orre, buddy,” I began, sucking in air between my teeth. “Not the first time I’ve seen this. Okay.”

“Look at it! Look at its beauty!”

“Yes, I see, it’s beautiful. Let’s get some food in you.”

Valarr and I managed to convince Orre to back up into his room. The genasi resisted at first, but we talked him into eating so he could be at full-strength.

“We all need to sleep so we can be ready for tomorrow. I think it would be best if we all go to bed,” Valarr assured him as Orre shoveled handfuls of food into his mouth.

Without arguing or making a fuss, Orre laid down – right on the floor, on his nest of weapons – and fell asleep. We looked down at him, then at one another, and quietly slipped out of the room.

Orre didn’t look too great the next morning, but that was to be expected. He joined us — Valarr, Egrin, Frankie, and I — at the table the next morning as we discussed our plan for the day over breakfast. The genasi did, however, produce a heavy pouch of gold, which earned Frankie’s immediate envy.

The plan was to pick up the supplies Valarr and I had ordered from the blacksmith, as well as Frankie’s gift, and then head to the guild hall to see if Gimbal had made headway on the prosthetic hand.

“I want to go to the beach after the Market!” Frankie declared.

Seeing our confused looks, Egrin gestured to his wife. “We can more easily reach the catacombs we need to enter tonight from the coast.”

“We’ll meet up with you after the guild, then,” Valarr said.

After that, all of us broke apart to finish our respective errands. Orre followed Egrin and Frankie to the beach, as he had no other preparations to make. Valarr and I picked up our armor and sword, respectively, and then headed to the guild hall to meet up with the others.

Nickel was asleep in Gimbal’s booth, but Gimbal herself was missing. We found her making her way back to her friend’s black cube. The letter Gimbal left for her was no longer there, which told us she had read it, so we went ahead and knocked on the side. Suddenly, a slit appeared in the cube at gnome height, and a pair of strangely distorted eyes appeared in the slit.

“Hey, Kel. What’s up?” Gimbal greeted nervously.

The distorted eyes squinted, then vanished.

We all stood awkwardly outside of the cube.

Valarr asked, “Are you still friends?”

“I… I thought we were—”

Vents on the top of the cube released steam. A door-shaped portion of the cube retracted backwards into the wall, then moved aside with a hydraulic hiss of air. In the doorway stood a rather irritable-looking gnome, slightly shorter than Gimbal, but with a wild mop of hair that stood straight up on top of her head. She crossed her arms and stared up, not even looking Gimbal in the eyes.

Gimbal ventured, “Hi, Kel! I have a customer for you.”

“You sure you can’t handle it yourself?” She snapped.

“Y… Yeah. He’s looking for some high-quality metal.”

“High-quality metal, huh? You mean like the heap you got sitting in your little workshop over there?”

“What?” Gimbal stared at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Mm-hmm.” Kel turned to look at us instead, giving us a once-over through a pair of green, glowing goggles that warped the appearance of her eyes. “So, what’s this metal for?”

“A hand.” Valarr waved the end of his wrist at her.

I raised my eyebrows. Something was definitely off here. Gimbal must have mortally offended this woman in some way and forgot.

“Uhhh… Hap…” Gimbal anxiously searched her mind for whatever she had done to Kel. “Hap..py… birthday?”

Kel immediately swiveled to Gimbal, face flashing with rage. “Get in the fucking cube.”

She waved us all inside, and the door hissed shut behind us. The room plunged into darkness before various lights began to turn on, slowly filling the workshop with an eerie turquoise glow. One singular spotlight clicked on above Kel’s desk. The gnome climbed into her chair, a mechanical construction with some kind of automatic piston allowing it to swivel.

Ignoring her attitude, Gimbal and Valarr negotiated with Kel about the construction of the hand, and Kel mentioned – in a way that suggested Kel was desperately trying to not seem jealous – the Warforged sitting in Gimbal’s workshop.

Gimbal’s head snapped up in shock. “He – no! He’s just a friend of mine. Did you think I made him?”

“What? No! Of course not.” Flustered, Kel backpedaled, though the tense atmosphere vanished.

Gimbal dismissed the topic with a shake of her head, laying out the plans and templates she had drawn up for Valarr’s hand; Kel pulled out a red pen and started suggesting changes. The two of them bickered over details, but overall, Kel was rather annoyed she couldn’t find any glaring faults in Gimbal’s work.

They set to work. We spent a good deal of time in that little workshop. Gimbal and Kel made an incredible pair, their little hands a blur of tools and machinery. They seamlessly wove together magic and mechanisms beyond anything in my realm of understanding. I couldn’t help but stare, fascinated. Occasionally the two of them would pull over Valarr, taking measurements and discussing the intricacies of building functioning joints.

During the course of their work I suddenly realized Kel and Gimbal began to laugh and joke, exchanging playful punches and coy smiles. At one point, they reached for the same tool; their hands brushed. Gimbal lit up like a fireball and Kel immediately snapped her hand back, staring at her in a mix of horror, embarrassment, and feigned disgust.

After a beat, they returned to working as if nothing happened, though quieter than before.

Finally, after several hours of us waiting around, Kel held up the finished hand. I know nothing of artificer work, but it certainly looked and bent like a functioning hand. Kel brought the device over to Valarr, held up his mangled wrist, and clicked a button on the hand.

“This is gonna hurt,” she warned.

The device whirred to life, the inside of the wrist flashing white-hot. Then, Kel shoved the hand onto Valarr’s wrist.

The scent of burning flesh filled Kel’s quarters. Valarr promptly fainted.


	26. Day 8, Part 2: The Crossroads

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group, along with Egrin, began their descent back underground.

“Hold on,” Kel said. She held up Valarr’s arm and jammed her hands into his armpit.

Valarr kicked to life with a shout, jerking his arm back. The fingers of his new hand flexed and clenched into a fist. Gimbal and Kel cheered and hopped around, thrilled their invention worked. They grabbed each other into a tight hug. Kel realized what she had done and squirmed out of Gimbal’s arms, haughtily mussing her hair back into place.

Gimbal paid her, and they exchanged a few awkward goodbyes before Kel opened the automatic door. She waved us out of her workshop. I did elbow Gimbal on the way out, throwing a look back over my shoulder at Kel and grinning.

She cringed. “Don’t tell anyone.”

There were a few things we needed to collect around the guild hall — Egrin’s upgraded glove and Nickel, specifically — before we left for the coastline.

“You have a new hand!” Frankie said.

She ran to us, kicking up sand. We’d found her and Egrin’s belongings spread out in a secluded area of the beach. Egrin himself lounged on the sand like a cat. He combed droplets of water out of the seaweed-like tendrils of his long hair. Orre, on the other hand, was as dry as always, and kept a healthy distance from the water. He appeared to be keeping watch.

“Oh, ah, yes.” Valarr held out his hand, clenching and unclenching a fist. “Gimbal and her friend made it for me.”

“It’s metal!”

“Yes, it is metal, but it’s a part of me. It’s attached. Please do not try to unattach it. It was very painful.”

“You can take it off?” Frankie asked, looking up.

“No, I can’t, and I don’t want to try.” He curled his new hand to his chest cautiously.

I walked past them, picking my way over to Egrin through the sand.

“So,” I began, in Primordial. “Egrin Dreed, huh? Same as the pirate captain in the history books?”

He smiled, one of the first genuine facial expressions I’d ever seen from him. “What tipped you off?”

“It’s not exactly the most common name.”

Some of the others were laying out on the sand or dipping their toes in the waves. Gimbal was playing fetch with Ellie. We weren’t planning on heading underground until close to nightfall to avoid detection, so we had a bit of free time for an afternoon at the beach.

Egrin propped himself up and told me, “I was a captain, briefly, yes. Not anymore.” He paused. “Dysus won me in a card game. Don’t remember much else. I was... young.”

“Wait. Dysus?” I sat down.

“Oh, yes. She commanded an entire fleet under Beshaba. I was a captain in her fleet, of the Dreed clan. But I lost my whole crew here in the Bay. To the humans.”

I swept my eyes up and over the coast, looking upon the stacked rows upon rows of buildings overlooking the cliff. They glittered under the warm rays of the sun. The history books claimed the Crown had owned this land for over 70 years.

“How old are you?” I asked.

“Grinfish!” Frankie called, interrupting us. “Come here!”

We looked up as a few of the others made our way near us. Orre had found some dried driftwood further up the coastline, and the group was trying to start a fire. Egrin and I exchanged looks. We stood, moving closer to where the others encircled the small, growing flames.

We talked amongst ourselves that afternoon. It was really the first time we’d taken the chance to get to know one another beyond introducing ourselves that first night at the inn.

Francesca was the youngest of her family, with several brothers. Nickel was a bit of a local hero in his village, and the other townspeople had pitched in their funds to give him a much-needed vacation. Orre told us stories of the Dao that ruled the Plane of Earth and commanded armies of earth elementals; he’d accidentally found his way here after following the worm during a hunting excursion. I followed up with tales of my parents and my childhood, growing up on the road. Gimbal, a merchant, came here on business. And while I already knew Valarr’s story, I think my presence gave him the confidence he needed to talk openly about his goddess and Her mission.

Later, those who hadn’t yet gifted Frankie her wedding presents produced their offerings. While everything was a variety of odd trinkets from the Bazaar — a mechanical scarab beetle, a lantern that pulsed with the illusion of blue fireflies, that sort of thing — Frankie loved them in her simplicity.

We eventually lapsed back to discussing the plans for sneaking into the House that evening. The sky slowly darkened. Mist swept in off the waves. The moon was dark. Despite the crackling warmth of the bonfire, I knew our mission loomed over us in the distance.

Strapping our packs, weapons, and equipment back to our bodies, our group silently stood before the gaping mouth of the cavern. It was different from the one we’d gone into before. Egrin told us this cavern wound underneath the Smiling Lady.

“Are you expecting something?” Orre asked Egrin.

I looked at them, then realized Egrin was casting a long, analytical look at the horizon of the ocean.

“Soon,” he replied. “Black sails. We should be underground.”

As he said this, a wave crashed sharply against the arm of a breakwater stretched out into the ocean. Droplets sprayed across us.

Egrin nodded. “High tide. Let’s go.”

I felt something strange the moment we climbed into the fissure. In the other cavern, the magic hadn’t been strong enough for me to sense it. Or, perhaps, it was overpowered by the presence of Astrine weighing on my mind trying to establish a connection. Now, I was more sensitive to it. The whole of the catacombs burned and pulsed with magic. It made sense — the way Grant had to guide us back out of the tunnels because everything seemed to shift, and all the talk of elementals and monsters regularly crawling forth from the tunnels. Orre. Egrin. Shala.

The Golden Bay sat on top of a crossroads to other worlds.

The tunnels were thin enough that we could only move in a single-file line. As we walked further down into the catacombs, Egrin began to shift back into his monstrous form, seemingly following an old intuition more than any map or set route. Frankie was holding up the firefly lantern Nickel had given her and clinging tightly to me, clearly frightened of the dark. A few times, Valarr, Nickel, and Orre had to squeeze through the tight crevasses or ask others for help pushing them through.

As we moved downwards, I began to get a strange feeling. Grinfish suddenly stopped and held up his hand. The ground had begun to level, and even gradually ascend, but not nearly as steeply as I would have thought; we must have been pretty far down, to my estimation. He shifted to a more humanoid-looking form. I was immediately behind him, with Frankie clutching me just slightly behind me, and I watched him slowly ooze forward through the cracks to get a closer look.

He turned back to us and gave a shrug. “Not sure what they’re storing down here. We’re down this far because the casino may not be using all of this space.”

The walls began to widen around us, eventually coming to an opening in which the rock walls gave way to eroded plates of metal. Grinfish stopped us and began to pick at the rusted panels, carefully setting them on the ground. Then, he turned, beckoned with one finger, and slid through the hole he had cleared. The group followed closely behind him.

We stood in the doorway of an open chamber. But something was not right. Grinfish took a deep, hissing breath, and pressed himself against the wall.

The room was divided into three sections by winding streams of black seawater, oozing impossibly slow past us. Once crafted from marble, the floor had been carved and eroded by the water, which stunk of brine and sulfur. Points of light drifted through the streams, turning the chamber a dim, sickly yellow. I could not see beyond the small areas lit by the points of light, even with my Darkvision. The whole room stunk of the ancient and arcane.

This was not the Material Plane. This didn’t feel like a plane at all, but more like something in between.

“It remembered me,” Grinfish muttered.


	27. Day 8, Part 3: Grave Danger

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In a space between worlds, the group encounters legions of undead.

Frankie looked closely at the lights. “Are there dead people in there?”

“Yes,” Egrin told her.

My head swiveled back to the streams, alarmed.

“This place exudes malevolence,” Valarr murmured. “Evil gods have walked this realm.”

The paladin put one hand on the hilt of his silver sword. Frankie wandered over fearlessly to the edge of the stream, but Valarr trailed behind, putting one hand on her shoulder as she peered into the water to ensure she didn’t fall in. She stared at the points of light — but as she did so, one of the lights surfaced, breaking through the water.

That light was no lantern, but a candle. A candle held aloft by one long, frail, sickeningly white hand.

Frankie looked inquisitive. “Is it dangerous to try and speak to them?”

“I think so, yes.” Grinfish said, pale.

“I think we should _get out of this room_ ,” Nickel chimed in.

We quietly picked through the eerily oppressive darkness of the room to find a thinner part of the stream, easy to hop.

All of us made it without much of a fuss until Valarr attempted to jump over; a wet, cold hand shot out from under the surface and wrapped around his ankle. The drow managed to fall safely on the same side as us without getting dragged under the water, but it was too late. We had drawn the attention of _something_.

The surface of the water bubbled. Undead creatures clawed their way onto the marble floors, snarling and spitting water. The candles’ flames flickered and grew, then drifted upwards, floating around us. Valarr scrambled to his feet, but the creature that grabbed him hauled itself to its full height, standing on the surface of the water.

It snapped its jaws at him, but missed. Another ran straight at me, slashing its claws; in a panic I cast Shield to protect myself, but he broke through my magic and raked my flesh.

The creatures moved in on us as a group. All at once there was a clash of tooth and claw against metal and magic.

Frankie strummed her ukelele, sending a pulse of magic over us, but shortly after she became entranced by the pulsing orbs of light dancing around us. Nickel was also paralyzed by the sight of the lights after swinging his warhammer at one of the undead.

I pulled my rapier from its sheath and called upon the Bladesong out of instinct, but still backed quickly away from the creature that had clawed me. I realized these beings were ghasts.

I called out, “Watch out, they’re poisonous!”

Valarr spun his silver sword, an aura of holy magic gusting around him. He threw himself at one of the ghasts. It hissed and screamed under the flash of his blade, and the creature’s disembodied arm fell to the ground with a sickening thud.

“Will-o’-Wisps,” He exclaimed in shock, looking to the lights, “They’ll feed on you if you fall!”

Ellie and Gimbal took down ghasts in the midst of the group, a flurry of clanking gears, metal talons, and alchemical magic. The undead ran at us full-speed, claws and teeth flailing. The arm Valarr had shorn from the ghast’s shoulder began to pull itself along the ground.

Orre stood to the side of the battlefield, transfixed with horror.

All at once, the ghasts dried. The air began to fill with the repulsive stench of rotting flesh. We covered our mouths, gagging, as we fought to maintain our composure. Something else joined the battle; a swirling pillar of murky water burst out of the channel beside us, shifting itself into a monstrous form.

Grinfish burst into action. He sprinted full-tilt towards the water spirit. Grinfish dove inside of the being, tearing at it from the inside. They whirled and flipped, plunged back into the dark depths. The surface smoothed.

With a metallic ring, I flourished my blade and cast Steel Wind Strike. Magic carried me faster than mortal eyes could perceive. I struck down four ghasts in range of me, then reappeared in the spot I had been previously standing. The slashes appeared on their skin as the undead howled in pain and anguish, and the one that had lost his arm dissolved into a heap of putrid flesh.

Frankie and Nickel followed the Will-o’-Wisps in a trance. All at once, both of them reached out to touch the lights, and were zapped. The electric wake-up call knocked them both out of their stupor.

Gimbal leaped off Ellie to attack the ghasts herself, commanding her griffin to fight independently. She slashed at a ghast right in front of her. It melted into a bubbling puddle right in front of the gnome. Another stumbled, hissing, up behind Gimbal, and Ellie threw herself protectively between the ghast and her master.

Orre, finally, snapped out of his terror. He pulled a silver harpoon out of his pack and stabbed at the nearest ghast. Meanwhile, I lost my footing for a moment and took a heavy blow from another ghast; the impact of the strike broke through my Bladesong.

Something arcane shook me down to my core and I found myself frozen in place. My hands were shoved outward, unmoving. Helpless. My heart pounded. Near me, Valarr tried to fend off a ghast, but took a similarly powerful blow and also froze in place. Both of us were paralyzed.

The water spirit – something I now recognized as a Water Weird – rose again from the water. It appeared to inhale, then rushed up onto the marble floor like a wave. The Weird’s tendrils wrapped up around Frankie’s legs. She looked at me, a split-second of fear crossing her face, before the Water Weird yanked her under the water. For a moment the surface of the river was still, then a Dimension Door opened in the middle of the battlefield.

Frankie reappeared in the midst of us, sopping wet, shaking, and pale. She screamed, “I can’t breathe! What the hell is down there?”

A ghast paralyzed Ellie; Gimbal retaliated by throwing an acid stone at it, but the stone shattered with a burning hiss across the marble. Ellie whirred back to life and dealt a deep gash to her opponent.

Behind me, I heard the Water Weird resurface. Orre shot his harpoon. The weapon plunged through the creature, then retracted, tearing back through it. An otherworldly howl of pain echoed through the chamber. The Water Weird slammed into Orre. It washed over him, but he managed to reel back, dripping and panting. Grinfish leapt forth from the depths of the water. He pulled a trident from his back and struck the Water Weird from behind. Frankie cast magic to aid Orre and her husband.

I struggled to will myself out of paralysis so I could help the others and defend myself, but the magic that bound me was too strong. However, next to me, Valarr shattered the ghasts’ hold on him at last. The drow whirled to me immediately, enveloping me in the soft, healing touch of Eillistraee’s magic. I felt the paralysis slip away from my muscles and bones. Stumbling slightly, I sagged against Valarr with a relieved sigh.

“Thank you,” I said.

Magic blasted overhead, sizzling into the Water Weird, weapons cut down rotting flesh. Valarr and I leaped back into battle alongside our colleagues, drawing our blades. The fight raged on, with Egrin in his fish-like form grappling with the Water Weird while we focused our efforts on the ghasts and Will-o’-Wisps. Nickel’s meteors crashed into our enemies. Gimbal lobbed her magical stones, bursting in vivid color. The tides began to turn; the battle was in our favor.

I vanished in a puff and reappeared behind the two ghasts nearest me. A circle of blades appeared around me, sweeping and slashing the two undead. Valarr cleared Will-o’-Wisps off the field. On the other side of the field, one of Gimbal’s bombs took down the last ghast.

Grinfish and the Weird vanished underwater again. Frankie gave a strangled cry and ran to the water’s edge, peering in.

As the ghasts fell, the Wisps moved in one us, sending out electrical arcs of energy. We focused our efforts on taking down the bobbing lights. They dodged blows, impossibly fast and flickering angrily.

The Water Weird burst upwards out of the stream, capturing Frankie in its midst. Frankie floated inside of it, and bubbles screamed from her open mouth. Grinfish surfaced near the creature. Helpless fury was etched across his features. The Water Weird threw another wave onto the floor, and this time the pull of the tide grasped Orre, dragging him into the depths.

The Weird shifted Frankie to the outside of its form, using her as a human shield as Grinfish menaced him. The fish snarled. He brandished his trident defiantly. Valarr rushed to the stream’s edge, weaving a blessing out of holy magic and casting it on Orre and Frankie.

I could not see Orre, who had slipped deep under the water, but the earth genasi’s harpoon broke the surface. He aimed at the Water Weird, but the harpoon’s head pierced Frankie’s thigh. Pulled back inside the creature, she screamed in anguish as a bloom of red blood filled the boundaries of the Weird’s form. The chain of the harpoon tightened. Soon after, Orre’s head broke water and he scrambled back onto the land. I paled, realizing he had used Frankie as leverage to pull himself to the surface.

Grinfish held out his hands, sweeping his arms over the Water Weird. The Weird resisted, an arcane battle of wills. But the Weird gave way. Grinfish’s magic warped the creature, forcing it to burst around Frankie. The Weird slipped back underwater. Grinfish fell in after it.

Frankie and Orre were both thrown forward onto the marble slabs. Blood gushed from the harpoon lodged in Frankie’s leg, and she laid on the floor, trembling and weeping. Valarr rushed forward to sweep her into his arms. The rest of us backed up towards them, using our weapons and magic to fend off the remaining Will-o’-Wisps.

“Get this out of me!” Frankie sobbed.

“Don’t pull it out yet,” Valarr countered.

An exhausted Egrin lunged forth from the depths. He threw a trident straight through a Wisp and yelled, “We need to run. _NOW!_ ”

We looked at him and then to each other, nodding in agreement. Leaping over the last stream before the way out, the group fled the battlefield, sheathing weapons and holding hands up to protect our heads from the Wisps as we ran.


	28. Day 8, Part 4: Temple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After escaping danger, the party finds themselves in an old, underground temple -- a temple over which the casino was built.

We found ourselves in a tight hallway that looked more like another tunnel, with rocky outcroppings and a narrow rivulet of water flowing down the center. Egrin leaped from stone to stone, a hazy silhouette through shifting realities. We struggled to maintain a visual on him as he sprinted ahead of us.

The murky water flowing between the stones spiked into pillars as the Water Weird pursued us across planes. It crashed into Orre and Nickel, injuring but not incapacitating them. The Weird shot out and wrapped around one of Ellie’s mechanical paws, forming into a clenched fist. The construct squawked, its gears straining, but the Weird effortlessly lifted her up and smashed her against a rock. Cogs and parts went flying.

Gimbal shrieked for help. Nickel gathered up the pieces. We kept moving.

Finally, the Water Weird sprang up in front of us from a gaping pool. Grinfish leaped through it with a flourish of bioluminescence. The creature steamed off of him and back into the pool below.

We followed as Grinfish tore open a door that appeared on the wall, ushering us through with a wave of his hand. “Go, go, go!”

The door slammed close behind us.

I found myself face to face with a robed, hooded mage on the other side. He had an incomplete abjuration spell on his fingers. Looking up, I recognized the dark eyes in the pale-grey face.

“You’re one of those things from the bar,” I said between gasps for breath.

“Things! Well,” he scoffed, offended. “But yes. I was not there the other night, but my companions were. They get a bit rowdy for my tastes.”

We appeared to be in a perfectly normal underground hallway, some kind of storage unit, lit by torchlight. There was no sound besides our labored breath, Frankie’s whimpers, and the crackle of flame casting eerie shadows across the walls.

The mage finished his abjuration spell with the flick of his fingers. I felt the power of the spell sink through the door and block something on the other side.

Grinfish held one finger to his mouth, then eased the door back open. In the sliver between the door and the frame, I could see that the other side seemed to be nothing more than a normal storage closet. A leak trickled through a crack in the wall.

“You’re lucky the lot of you weren’t still in there when I sealed the portal. Ah, well. The others will be closing in from the other side to finish off whatever undead you left back there,” the mage said.

“But what are y—” Valarr began, but when we turned around, the mage was gone.

We had no time to react. Clutching the harpoon in her leg, Frankie yelled, “Will someone get this out! Take it out!”

Grinfish silenced her with a look, then gestured to a nearby door. We carried her into the storage closet, moving ourselves somewhere more insulated.

I kneeled down and inspected the harpoon in Frankie’s thigh, relaying my findings to the others. It didn’t pierce bone, but possibly went through an artery; thankfully the head was not serrated in any way, so it would be easy for us to pull the spearhead out the other side. All we had to do was break one of the links. The problem would come after, when Frankie began to bleed from the open wound.

“I can heal after we pull it out,” Valarr volunteered.

“Whoa, waitwaitwait, just one second,” Frankie looked panicked. “We don’t need to pull it out just yet. Actually, it matches my leg. Look. It’s pretty-”

“In order to heal you, we need to take this out,” I told her.

Orre wordlessly pulled a leather strap out of his bag and put it in Frankie’s mouth, then placed on hand on the harpoon. Gimbal used wire cutters to break one of the links. The gnome hid her face from me, but I could still see the tears glinting on her face. I frowned. After Frankie, we’d have to tend to Ellie next.

Egrin gave the word. Everything happened quickly. Frankie screamed behind the strap. As soon as Orre pulled the harpoon free, Valarr pressed his hand against the wound. Divine magic flowed from him. After a moment of chaos, we pulled back to examine the healers’ work; Frankie’s wound was still present, but scabbed over, puckering into what would eventually become a scar.

The bard, panting and with tears still streaming down her face, tore her hands from Egrin’s to pull the strap out of her mouth and immediately began healing herself to finish the job. After she fully closed the scar, Frankie crossed her arms over her chest and pouted in the corner.

I surveyed the room now that Frankie’s fiasco was over. We all looked beaten half to death.

“Is there any possible way we could rest?” Gimbal asked. She held Ellie’s pieces in her trembling hands.

“Where do you think you are?” Egrin asked with wide eyes.

She didn’t reply. Despite Egrin’s urgency, I turned my attention to Gimbal and Ellie. The gnome put some love and care into repairing her construct’s core capacitor while those of us who could magically mend objects did what we could to put her back together. Shaking his head, Egrin quietly opened the door and slipped out into the hallway to stand watch.

“We need to get ready to go,” Valarr said, after a time.

We finished up our work on Ellie — or, at least, what we could do — and gathered up our things. We slipped out into the hallway. Most members of our group were decently stealthy, but Orre and Valarr couldn’t hide the noise their armor made, so they trailed behind the rest of the party in the event they needed to draw attention away from the rest of us.

Grinfish continued to lead us, his footfalls deafened by the leather wrappings on his feet. He would occasionally stop to peer down a hallway or get his bearings in terms of direction, but he seemed generally confident in where he was going, following old instincts.

We followed closely behind him. The group passed through a maze of rooms and hallways, occasionally breaking into a room and crossing through to another corridor. Sometimes Grinfish asked us to follow in his footsteps exactly. Other times he paused to listen or examine an object before proceeding.

“Grinfish,” Frankie asked. “Where are we?”

“Underneath,” he answered absently.

“But what did it used to be?”

Grinfish stopped for a moment, considering her question. “A temple.”

“Like to a god? To Beshaba?”

He nodded but spoke no further, moving to continue our journey. After a time, he pointed down to the marble floor beneath us. I glanced down to see cloven hoofprints melted into the slab, as easily as if the beast had been treading through muddy terrain. The floor around the tracks appeared to raise and ripple like water. The Material Plane itself rejected this creature, whatever it was.

I peered at the hoofprints and was immediately repelled by pungent dark magic that assailed my senses. I closed my eyes and reeled backwards. This beast was not supposed to be here.

A clanking “caw” caught our attention, and all of us turned to see Ellie scratching, dog-like, at a door that had previously been concealed from our sight. Gimbal followed her construct’s lead and poked around the door.

She grimaced suddenly and looked back at us. “This door is rigged. If we open it, a pressure plate will release a toxic gas.”

“I don’t need t’ breathe,” Nickel piped up, “unless it’s corrosive gas, in which case I ain’t goin’ in there.”

Gimbal dumped a pack of thieves’ tools out of her bag. I balked at this sudden revelation, but set that thought aside and moved in to see if she needed any help disarming the door. Gimbal did most of the work with her trap kit, occasionally leaning over to ask me for advice regarding particular mechanisms. We puzzled it out together. Gimbal asked me for a leg up, and I hoisted her onto my shoulders as she finished her work. Finally, she pulled handfuls of what looked like tiny water skins out of the door and bobbed them in her hands.

I recognized the containers as being your run-of-the-mill poison gas. It was nothing that would kill someone, but could cause people to be blinded, maybe even a bit of coughing and retching.

“Anybody else have a burning desire to see what’s back here?” Gimbal asked us, jerking one thumb over her shoulder to point towards the door. “We should be careful in case there’s people around, but-”

“There’s no need to sneak, technically,” Nickel said.

“We’re literally under the casino.”

The Warforged held out his arms and gestured to the elaborate temple of misfortune around us. “You think there are House employees down here?”

Gimbal sputtered and tried to come up with a logical response, but while they were bickering, Frankie got bored of their conversation and walked right through the door. I squeezed my eyes shut, aggravated, and Valarr sighed and followed after her.

The drow didn’t take more than three steps into the corridor until he leaned back out the door and hesitantly ventured, “You should see this.”


	29. Day 8, Part 5: Altar of the Beast

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They went into the tunnels to find the antlers of Beshaba. They didn't realize they would be attached to something.

We filed into the dark hallway, which curved around us into a pointed arch. The floors and walls were littered with skeletons. Frankie crafted shimmering lights along the ceiling out of magic, which cast an eerie glow around us. A quick, observant glance told me that all of these skeletons had puncture wounds in the side of their skulls in the same spot — evidence of some kind of trap.

Frankie, up ahead, kneeled down in front of one of the skeletons and used her ability to speak to the dead. The skull inhaled sharply, stricken by its sudden resurrection.

“Who are you?” She asked.

“Kuratya,” The skull hissed, “Of an old human kingdom.”

“What happened to you?”

“Sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice to what?”

“Pirate hostages. No ransom.”

“What do you know about… shit,” Frankie paused and tapped her lower lip thoughtfully, “Bess… Besheeba? Beshaba!”

“Pirate goddess. Sacrifice.”

“How do we bring her back?”

It repeated, howling with more urgency, “Sacrifice!”

With that final question, the skull decayed into dust.

Valarr cast a look down the corridor. The hallway was more of a central aisle. It opened into a wider chamber at the end, a chapel.

“I should mention,” I spoke up, “that all the more recent skeletons have puncture wounds around their temples, about the same height. There are probably traps in here.”

“I’m probably fine,” Gimbal said.

Valarr summoned several orbs of light and sent them down into the wider room. They lit the corners of the steepled, vaulted ceiling, and the rest of us could make out something akin to an altar at the end of the aisle. Gimbal, being the smallest, snuck down to the widening of the room and peered around.

She examined the altar without touching it, peering above and below it.

Frankie tagged along with Gimbal to look at the altar. After a moment of watching the gnome inspect it, she crawled on top of the altar’s marble slab top. Gimbal, who had been looking underneath the altar, stood up suddenly and reeled back, startled by Frankie’s sudden presence.

“Oh, it’s like a stage!” Frankie stood up and began recounting the steps of the dance she had learned at the House.

“No, Frankie!” Gimbal shrieked. “Frankie, that dance is a ritual offering to Tymora—”

Valarr, who had been observing the religious aspects of the temple, whipped around just as he noticed Frankie dancing. He opened his mouth to yell and just made a strangled, screaming noise. He began shouting curses in the serpentine syllables of Undercommon. I clapped one hand over his mouth and held one finger in the air, urging everyone to be silent. We listened. All eyes were on Frankie and the altar.

Egrin just sighed, closing his eyes and letting his shoulders sag.

The door to the chamber clicked shut. Egrin, nearest to the door, did not even move. Frankie stepped down from the altar. She made her way over to the rest of us. The darkness in the room deepened, similar to the oppressive darkness in the other plane where the ghasts and Wisps attacked us. The lights that Valarr and Frankie summoned flickered, then went out.

A single light came into focus atop the altar. It expanded, and a quadrupedal creature stepped forth from the light. It was what I can only describe as “elk-like,” but it definitely was not an elk. Cloven hooves connected to thin ankles and legs — four legs? Five legs? — which supported a beast with a body that was more sinewy, more slender than the average elk, but still covered in thick, shaggy fur. A sloping, equine neck extended upwards from the chest but cut off suddenly, with its head floating, detached, a few centimeters above.

The creature’s eyes were black and many. Atop its heads were two bloodied voids where antlers should have been.

Stepping gingerly onto the altar, the beast looked out over us; its jaw fell open, and it emitted a sound something like a human voice screaming. The lights flickered again, and somehow, in the mess of light and shadow and sound, I could see the blinding ghosts of the antlers arcing from the beast’s head like twin forks of lightning. I froze, unable to move.

The electrifying light of the antlers cast shadows that contorted and stretched across the hall. The ruined pews appeared whole in their shadows. The skeletons, sitting perfectly still in death, cast the images of pained, writhing humans. Beside me, Valarr gasped sharply. I looked at him and saw the shadowed silhouette of wings stretching from his back.

Those of us still in possession of any kind of self control drew our weapons and readied ourselves for battle.

Immediately after the creature emitted its unholy shriek, the room groaned and shimmered around us. I found myself on a floating platform, as if I had blinked and the room splintered into pieces. Reality bent and stopped making sense. Distributed on other platforms throughout space were the others, and the beast itself had split, with five different images of itself spread across the platforms.

I began on my own small island, fraught with a mockery of the chapel’s ruined pews and decor. I was face to face with one of the beast’s copies. A larger platform in the middle had Valarr and Frankie on it, together, along with another mirror image of the beast; Nickel and Orre were on a smaller chunk beside mine with another copy; and on his own a ways away was Egrin confronting his own beast. Gimbal stood face to face with the original beast on its altar, separated between her and Ellie’s small island and the altar by a wide chasm.

Some of us were stricken by this, disoriented by the rift in space, and their movements slowed. I noticed that the skeletons of the sacrificed that had littered the chapel were curiously missing. Between the platforms, the void beneath us teemed with writhing movement and rasping whispers.

The first one to move was Frankie, whose nervous disposition undermined her usual confidence. She gave a shaky bow and said, “We have come to speak with you.”

Gimbal moved in front of Ellie, readying herself to defend the construct.

If the creature recognized her words, it did not respond. In fact, the beast and all its projections stood unnaturally still; There was not a single twitch of an ear or blink of its eyes, and the blazing electric light that made up its phantom horns had frozen mid-arc.

Orre called across the chasm to Egrin, “Do you need your weapon?”

“Yeah!” Egrin swiveled to stare at him with something between terror and profound exasperation in his eyes. The fish pulled his longsword and backed away from the beast, but his foot nearly slipped off the ledge of his island. He looked down. All at once his face contorted into pure terror, and Egrin stepped away from the edge, back towards the creature.

Up until this point I had been panicking. Something about this place, this creature, the air around me instilled in me so deep a terror I stood at a precipice of madness. After witnessing Egrin’s utter fear, my paralysis shattered, and I lunged forward, shoving my palms out and sending a massive blast of lightning towards the creature in front of me. Still standing perfectly still, the beast before me took the full blast of my blow, but did not react; the copy of the beast behind it, which faced Nickel and Orre, also got caught in the arc of lightning, but as if I had blinked it shifted slightly to the side, otherwise unmoving, to avoid the rest of the blast.

Something about the creature targeted me in an unnatural way, and I felt myself grow cold and slow, paralyzed with fear. My mind was consumed with terror.

The creature’s unnatural stillness shook me to my core. What _was_ this being? It was clearly arcane in nature, possibly divine, maybe a servant to an extraplanar master? Did this beast belong to Beshaba herself? I had never encountered something of its kind before, not even in books.

Nickel called across the chasm towards the people further from us, “Hey, y’all right?”

“Maybe,” Gimbal squeaked.

“Need some help?”

Before Gimbal could respond, Valarr took two confident swings at the image of the beast nearest him with his silver sword, and light flashed as the blade struck. The weapon clearly hit, but the beast before him stood the same as mine had — unflinching, unblinking, unbothered by the clash.

For a heart-pounding moment, nothing happened. The beast shifted, shimmered, and reappeared behind him, and the antlers flickered electrically above its head. Moving its limbs for the first time since it had brought us here, the beast lowered its head and attacked Valarr with its horns.


	30. Day 8, Part 6: The Unhorned

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group stands up to an enemy like nothing they've ever seen. Piscín has a close call.

Nickel threw magic Gimbal’s way – polymorphing her into a young golden dragon. The gnome shrieked as she suddenly burst into a creature several times her size, stretching out her broad wings and flexing new claws.

The copy of the beast near Nickel turned its head to the Warforged and moved strangely. Its head slid to the side above the space where its neck should have been. Something halo-like flickered around its head, but Nickel managed to withstand the beast’s magic.

The mirror image of the beast before me turned to me in the same fashion, unhinging its jaw in my direction. I moved to protect myself from the beast too late, and an exhalation of necrotic magic consumed me. I screamed. It felt like fire burned in my veins, stripping the flesh from my bones, and my stomach turned itself inside out as I retched and collapsed. I hit my temple on a rock on the platform and laid in place, unable to move, slipping in and out of consciousness.

It was hard to differentiate reality from the call of death, but Gimbal flew across the chasm between our platforms to defend me from the beast in my helpless state. She snapped and clawed at the creature with her newfound dragon body. Nickel joined the fray, lobbing his magic this way and that in an effort to provide as much backup as possible. One of the creatures blinked behind him and he stumbled away, flinging meteors at it.

I heard shouts and calls, some including my name; Frankie hopped from platform to platform, striving to make her way to me with a healing spell at the ready. Orre tossed Egrin his trident and then leaped across platforms to join the fish, fighting off the beast alongside him.

The creature and its copies began to manipulate space once again, the platforms on which we were standing crashing together and tilting. The monsters themselves continued to stand eerily in place, silent, their bodies shifting with the platforms, while us mere mortals rolled; Gimbal skidded off the edge of our island, but grabbed the edge. She managed to stretch out her wing to stop me before I could fall, then clambered back onto the platform.

From the angle, I could see what lay in the void below the floating platforms — hordes and hordes of undead, reaching up for us with hungry, decaying fingers.

Valarr lost his footing and slid down the sloping surface. He managed to grab onto the edge but dangled precariously above the stacks of the undead. Valarr kicked off their grasping hands, pulling himself back onto the platform.

Before Frankie could bring me back to full consciousness, the beast blinked around Gimbal and warped Frankie’s mind with insanity, wrapping her brow in an iron crown of madness. Frankie rebelled against the crown, in conflict with herself as the beast forced her to attack the dragon. She screamed, throwing herself onto the ground beside me, crying out, “You can’t tell me what to do!” When she hit the floor, the sheer strength of her will shattered the crown, and she broke free from its control.

Egrin attempted to drive the beast he was fighting off the edge, and the creature merely took a step back and stood floating above the abyss as if on flat ground. Utterly fed up with the battle, he stomped and yelled, “Fuck it!” before hurling himself on top of the creature.

All of the images of the beast opened their mouths and let loose a fearsome scream once more, striking many of those who were still conscious. Following their call, the skeletons began to crawl up from underneath, climbing into the platforms to come after us.

Frankie finally managed to sing a soothing lullaby for me, bringing me back to consciousness. Her music flowed through me and mended the necrotic magic that had infested my body. I broke the surface of reality like a drowning person through water. Sitting up, I looked out over the battlefield and took in the entirety of what was happening.

I saw Gimbal in all her draconic splendor, scales shimmering metallic gold as they reflected the firelight gushing forth from her enormous maw. One of the creatures was still across a gap before us. Gimbal flew across the chasm to take on the beast that was assailing Nickel. Orre still fought another, while Egrin succeeded in leaping atop the beast and was attacking it from its back. Valarr managed to climb atop the platform and was also in the midst of combat, fending off both the beasts and the undead.

The echoes of my brush with death howled in my bones, rattled like chains. I could feel my limbs creak as I stood, as if with impossible age, but I got to my feet in spite of the horrific nausea and exhaustion that still assaulted me. I summoned lightning forth from the storm in my soul. Lifting my hands, the air around me crackled with ozone, and with an explosive roar I sent electricity surging forth towards one of the beasts in the center of the field. The lightning struck its target, then arced to the next creature nearest it and a few of the nearby undead.

The copies of the beast, though eerily still between movements, all appeared vaguely singed. The screams of the undead were muffled by the popping and cracking of their rotten flesh.

Nickel also began to fling his meteors at the undead, clearing swaths of them off the battlefield.

In one desperate motion, Egrin turned and thrust his trident through the air towards the original beast. The weapon hit its mark. Three barbed tines pierced the beast’s face, and for the first time, it reared back in pain.

Then, the beast flickered like a light, and all of the creatures on the field vanished. As if we had blinked, all of us were suddenly back in the chapel. The room was dark. Smoke rose from the altar. When we checked its surface, there were hoofprints charred into it, much the same as the prints we had followed to this place.

Gimbal was still a dragon. She sat in the chamber, tail curled around her, her head lowered to keep from hitting the vaulted ceilings. “Nickel, this is _awesome_!”

“Where is it?” Frankie asked Grinfish. “I thought if we defeated it, we would get something?”

“Shh. Stay,” he told her, then slowly approached the altar.

Orre put a hand on Frankie’s shoulder. “Good job summoning the monster.”

“We did get it, I think. What happens from here…” Grinfish observed the hoofprints on the altar, half thinking out loud and half rambling to us. “I think… it has fled to its master.”

He turned towards us. “Do we have a wizard?”

Exhausted, I raised my hand, and shuffled forward as he beckoned me.

I looked over the hoofprints and the strange shadow the beast had left burned in the altar. Its arcane nature immediately repelled me, but I fought through the impulse to run. I identified it as a servant of Beshaba. “It has been called back. She has taken notice of us, for better or for worst.”

Afterwards, the others wanted to explore the room, while Egrin clearly was in a rush to leave the chapel. All I wanted to do was rest. I leaned my weight against part of a ruined pew and sat down.

“I really did not like that. Let’s try not to anger any more divine creatures,” Valarr mused, as he sheathed his sword. The drow began to look around the room, searching for any items that could prove useful to us.

Frankie, incredibly excited about winning the battle, began babbling about all the interesting things she had done to contribute as she followed Valarr. The drow responded to her like a kindly father indulging the whims of his excitable daughter, despite the fact that he was knee-deep in skeletons and picking through the belongings the sacrificed had left behind.

“We should finish checking this room as soon as possible,” I called to the others, wiping a mix of blood and sweat off my face. “We need to rest.”

“So,” a voice boomed over us – Gimbal. “Do you think I should stay like this? I’d like to search the room myself, but I kinda like being a dragon.”

Nickel sighed and lazily waved his hand, dispelling the polymorph. Gimbal shrieked and toppled over as she poofed back into her usual, three-foot, gnome self.

“Thanks for the help back there, friend. I would’ve fallen right off the edge without you,” I told her.

Gimbal rubbed a bruise on her arm with a pout. “Awww… I felt so cool. Now I just feel sore.”

Cracking his neck, Nickel gruffly said, “Don’t need any more attention than we already got. An’ I agree with the… pearly-lookin’…” He waved dismissively at me. “I confess I ain’t learned most a’ y’all’s names. Anyway, we should rest.”

Interrupting us, Valarr gave a yell. We all turned and saw the massive trove of valuables he’d collected in the corner. With wide eyes, Gimbal ran to inspect his findings, while Nickel helped me to my feet.


	31. Day 8, Part 7: Rest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the battle with the Unhorned, the group gets some much-needed rest.

When Valarr pulled his loot into the open, the pile threw a cloud of bone dust and debris into the air. I pulled the cowl of my shirt over my mouth as I hauled myself, limping, to his side. Gimbal already had a small notepad out. Her pencil scribbled across the page hurriedly, taking inventory.

I swept my eyes over the pile. Jewelry abounded: two gilded rings, a broach set with a brilliant ruby, a silver body chain inlaid with pearls. I noticed a ceremonial dirk, a tuft of shaggy fur, and a pristine book — entirely untouched by dirt or decay — written in an unknown tongue.

“You surely can’t carry all of this yourself,” Gimbal told Valarr, practically drooling. “Can I take some of this for now? I can properly identify it later when we find somewhere safer to rest.”

Valarr dropped the skeleton he was holding and eyed her. “I am immune to certain things because of my goddess. I should hold onto this for now.”

“However,” he continued, holding up the ceremonial dirk crusted in old blood, “I have an idea of what this was used for. And this book…”

Gimbal slipped on her Helm of Comprehending Languages and leaned in as Valarr cracked open the pages of the book. Her eyes scanned the pages, but the words quickly overwhelmed her; tears blurred her eyes, streaming down her face. Gimbal reeled back. She tore the helm off her head and rubbed at her eyes, eventually blinking away the tears.

“Don’t read that,” she shrieked. “Well, maybe. It was beauti — actually, no. Don’t read it. We just found something written by a god. On the downside, reading it will blind you.”

Egrin looked uneasy.

“If I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably the story of how Tyche broke into Beshaba and Tymora. But reading it is like… looking into the sun,” Gimbal continued.

“As much as I’d love to be rid of this vile thing,” Valarr said, rubbing his fingers together as if touching the pages had left an oily residue, “I should be the one to hang onto it. I doubt it can be harmed or destroyed, anyway.”

“Let the paladin be a paladin,” I piped up, waving absently. Satisfied that I’d taken his side, Valarr smiled, wrapped the book in a silver chain, and shoved it into his pack.

Egrin came wandering back to us, and that was the moment I realized he’d slipped away to investigate the far side of the sanctuary on his own.

“Over there. Seems hidden.” He nodded, indicating a place in the walls where the stonework had collapsed inward, leaving behind the slivers of shadowed caverns.

“This place reminds me too much of home,” Valarr muttered.

Wordlessly, Egrin slinked forward to explore the shadowy alcove. Frankie went skipping after him. The high, steepled ceiling rang with the echoes of her incessant questions.

“Wasn’t I amazing in that fight? Did we get the antlers?”

“It went back,” Egrin said, nodding.

“To its god?”

“Hope so.”

Frankie looked confused. “How do we get the antlers if it has the antlers?”

“We needed to return it. Reunite it with its goddess. She has the antlers.”

She was satisfied with this answer, strangely. I will never understand how they communicate. Neither of them directly answered each other’s questions. Still, as I watched the two of them — Egrin patiently humoring Frankie, Frankie endlessly enamored by everything he did — I couldn’t help but realize they worked well together, in their own odd, dysfunctional way.

We waited a few moments while they checked the fissure. Nickel was resting, and Orre was content to sit in silence until Egrin and Frankie scouted the crack in the wall. Gimbal was looking over Ellie and tinkering with any lingering damage.

Suddenly, Frankie’s voice spoke up near Gimbal. “Hey, there’s stuff over here!”

The gnome screamed.

“I’m invisible,” Frankie said.

I squinted, realizing Frankie had cast Mislead on herself and sent her illusory copy down the tunnel instead of her real body.

“Do we need plates?” She asked. “This room leads to a place with plates.”

“Is it a storage room for the House?”

“I would highly recommend that we not leave up through the casino,” I mentioned uneasily.

Frankie’s invisible self sighed loudly. “You know what, guys, I’m just gonna keep looking around this room, ‘kay? Bye.”

I held out my hands in exasperation, then let them fall to my thighs with a clap. I made my way over to the crack in the wall. The fissure was narrow, but I’m small and lithe, so it wasn’t long before I emerged on the other side. Egrin, standing near the entrance, gave me a disinterested glance. He said nothing.

I looked around. It was some kind of storage room filled with knee-height cargo boxes full of cups and plates. Frankie’s illusory copy stood silently and doll-like in the middle of the room, inactive. I heard her real voice shout behind me, “Wait for me!”

There was a single door. I reached out, turned the knob, and slowly pushed it open. I peaked outside and found nothing but a hallway, full of similar doors. Probably more storage rooms. I closed the door behind me and locked it.

Eventually, the others followed. I presume Frankie alerted someone the room on the other side of the crack was safe, or they saw Egrin, Frankie, and I slip through without returning. Either way, I stayed posted by the door as everyone regrouped. More than once, I heard the hurried footsteps of waitstaff in the hallways outside, but they always opened other doors.

We silently agreed to use the storage room as a rest spot. Valarr laid out the items he’d found so Gimbal could look over them with a more detailed, critical eye. Meanwhile, the rest of us discussed a plan.

“We probably shouldn’t try to escape through the House,” I told them. “I know for a fact that Belfast works with illusions, and the only spell I can use to disguise us is an illusion. He will likely be able to see through it.”

“Maybe there’s a back way out?” Frankie contributed.

“We could go back through the tunnels,” Orre said.

That was met with a resounding, “NO.” I briefly recalled the grey, black-eyed elf who sealed off the portal to the in-between plane. Going back that way wouldn’t be an option, anyway.

Nickel asked wearily, “So, how many of us can teleport far distances?”

Frankie and I raised our hands.

“So can I,” the Warforged continued. “If we each take one person with us—”

“But there’s seven of us,” I said, nodding to Egrin.

Nickel sighed. “I can come back for Egrin. Take two trips instead of one.”

“But where?”

After a bit of discussion and some hastily-sketched floor plans of the casino, we settled on what we believed was the guest quarters — spacious, luxurious suites reserved for the few who could afford to spend the night.

The idea of resting in such splendor evaded me. For the past week, we’d fallen asleep in dark, wet caves and the uncomfortable, bare-bones beds of the Lazy Eye. Now, we would be resting on the floor of a storage closet right under the nose of a man who wanted us dead.

I thought of better, brighter days as we unrolled our bedding. A few of the others continued speaking among themselves quietly. Gimbal sorted through the loot, inspecting each piece with a careful eye. But I could no longer stand being awake. I felt my eyelids droop and my head lull, and shortly after, I was claimed by the true emptiness of sleep – real, human sleep.


	32. Day 9, Part 1: Escape

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nickel's plan gets everyone out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Dreaming is strange. The visions of trance are clearer in comparison, even when they consist of a patchwork of images. I can remember details, stitch the pictures together in some kind of order. On the other hand, dreams fade in and out. The outlines blur. One moment will be a memory and the next, a perversion of reality embedded in fractured buildings my mind rebuilt imperfectly.

In the dream, I saw the blue elf once more. Somehow I knew they were an eladrin, or perhaps once had been an eladrin, long ago. We were traveling companions, but I was not myself. Sometimes we stood in a study together. I knew it was my study — a demiplane. The only thing I saw clearly was the sigil sequence needed to access it.

Then, I was somewhere else. Nothing made much sense. One of the masked elves from the bar was there. His voice scratched up out of his throat. I kept trying to look for Pascal, but no one knew who I was talking about. Somewhere, I heard the sound of a door knob rattling.

The eladrin called me Liadan. That was my name, I knew. My name back then. My past life’s name. And they were —

“Kevahir,” I gasped as I awoke.

I looked around. We were still in the storage room beneath the Smiling Lady. An understanding came upon me sharply and suddenly that, in the midst of all my dreaming, the sound of the door knob rattling had been real. I reached over to shake Valarr awake.

My ears picked up the sound of voices down the hallway.

“Please, I’ll use the key for this one thing and give it back.”

“I have to go back upstairs now. It’s important.”

“You don’t need the keys to talk to the cooks! I told you, after I’m done down here, I’ll get ‘em back to you. The storage closet with the plates I need is locked for some reason.”

A sigh, then a jangle of keys. “Must be that damned night shift janitor. Fine. But make it quick.”

Valarr and a few of the others were beginning to stir, summoned out of sleep by the noise. Orre was the first on his feet when we caught the sound of footsteps drawing closer to our door. All of us swept our belongings back into the corners of the room, grabbed our fighting equipment, and hid behind the nearest crates.

A halfling servant, looking to be around the age of fifteen, swung into the room and walked over to a crate. He rifled through the plates and cups inside the boxes. After stacking all of his necessary wares in his hand, the halfling turned around and saw Frankie. He froze mid-step.

“Wait!” Frankie cried, holding up her arms. “We just need your help.”

A plate sailed past her head and cracked against the wall.

“Francesca Landon?” The halfling squeaked, holding up another plate and readying to throw it at us.

I rose from behind the crate and cast a wave of magic at the halfling boy, putting him to sleep. He collapsed to the floor.

We all slumped and sighed. Gimbal said, “Good morning, everybody.”

“How long does the child need to sleep?” Orre asked me.

“Halfling,” I corrected. “He’ll remain asleep until someone shakes him awake. We’ll have to put him somewhere he’ll be found.”

Nickel pushed the slumbering halfling aside, careful not to wake him. The spell bought us some time to clean up our belongings and follow through with the teleportation plan before his coworker came looking for him.

As Gimbal and Valarr packed up their belongings, I noticed them divvying up the loot from the night before. “Ah, right. Gimbal, what did you find?”

“The rings have spells in them,” she told me, heaving her messenger bag over her shoulder and taking a moment to tickle Ellie under her chin. The mechanical griffin gave a little trill. “The body-chain has some kind of illusory magic.”

The others took a moment to discuss who should have each item. Frankie took the body chain. Valarr took one of the rings. While they spoke, I hauled the halfling into the hallway and left him to be found, making sure the keys he’d borrowed were still in his hand. When I got back, Gimbal handed me the ring with a Sanctuary spell stowed in it.

Gimbal pulled Ellie into her arms while I stood beside her. Nickel kept close to both Orre and Egrin; Orre looked distressed at the idea of being spirited to the surface by magic, but maintained his composure. He was to go first, with Nickel coming back to retrieve Egrin after. Frankie and Valarr held hands.

“Ready?” Nickel asked.

We nodded. Frankie, Nickel, and I all concentrated our power before us; three doors formed out of burning hot magic. We walked forward into the portals with our companions in tow.

When I felt the thick humidity of steam in the air, I knew something wasn’t right. We opened our eyes and looked around to find ourselves in a massive bath house. The baths were more like pools, the room crafted from imported stone tiles, chiseled pillars, and gold filigree. I noticed Nickel had already left to get Egrin, leaving Orre alone between me, Gimbal, Ellie, Frankie, and Valarr.

On the far side of the room, two men sat nude in their bath. They stared, slack-jawed, at our sudden appearance. Both of them had golden hair that hung around their faces in cherubic ringlets. In fact, they looked somewhat like—

“Francesca?” One of the men yelled.

“Shit,” Frankie swore. “Time to leave!”

“Guards,” the other man shouted. A host of what I can only assume were personal bodyguards came running into the room. They all bore the Landon family crest.

The bodyguards nocked arrows in their bows and aimed. With a forward thrust of my hand, I summoned a cloud of fog to obscure their vision. Frankie, Valarr, Gimbal, and Ellie pressed themselves away from the guards and towards the nearest exit.

This, of course, happened to be the exact moment Nickel and Egrin arrived. “What in tarnation—”

“Bath house,” I explained. “Guards.”

“Perfect,” Egrin said mischievously, then slipped silently into the water.

He summoned the water into a tall pillar, which then crashed down onto the room indiscriminately. I rushed to Nickel and clung to him as the water battered us. After the attack, Egrin floated in the center of the pool in a daze, seemingly exhausted by such high-level magic. Nickel grabbed him as we ran to catch up with the others.

“Go!” I yelled. Everyone broke out in a full sprint.

Some of the guards eventually got their bearings and pursued us, but we identified an emergency route to the streets near the bath house and evaded them. Our group crashed through the doors to the outside. The skies were so laden with low, dark clouds I could barely breathe. Storm winds blew off the ocean, carrying the smell of brine and ozone.

The guards ran to catch up with us, but as they arrived outside, the evacuation bells in the government buildings’ bell towers sounded. We all looked to the sea. Black sails, dangerously close to the shore. The bodyguards gave us a frustrated warning look, but turned back around and went inside, no doubt to evacuate their masters.

Gimbal looked to Frankie. “Relatives of yours?”

“Brothers,” she said, in perhaps the least enthusiastic tone I’d ever heard from her. She swiftly changed her demeanor to praise Egrin. “You were so courageous in there! You saved me!”

Before anyone could say anything else, Orre shouted, with his weapons held high, “It is time to run!” and tore towards the coast at a full sprint. Valarr and I grabbed our things and dashed after him. Nickel trailed after us, scooping up the shrieking gnome and dragging her along. I could hear Ellie’s metal wings beating against the rush of wind that assailed us as the storm approached the shore.

My eyes flicked to the sky. The clouds seemed to writhe in knots over the shoreline as they swept in, bringing with them a heavy pressure that made my skin crawl. Unholy lightning slithered across the sky like forked tongues, but between lightning bolts, the storm parted in columns of brilliant daylight.

Egrin said, “The goddesses. We need to go to them. They will be reunited.”

Wind bit our ankles through the eerily empty streets. Most civilians had evacuated, but some remained behind, standing on the rooftops and pointing at something in the distance beyond the buildings. I could not see the object of their interest, but they looked towards the shoreline.

My peripheral vision caught the sight of a flaming meteor drop from the clouds. It collided with the ground beyond the city. The street trembled beneath me.


	33. Day 9, Part 2: The Invasion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The pirates have finally landed. The House clashes with them at the shore. The party rushes to help protect the city.

Meteors rained, the pillars of light broke through the clouds as if exuding divine radiance, and a clamor of shouting and the clashing of weapons filled the air. We drew closer, the din rising in volume, and as we rounded a bend and came over a hill, we saw it.

A fleet of pirate ships and skiffs drew near the shore, the sails of Black Bess flying overhead. They had not yet landed. A rising tide crashed against the rocky shores and rushed up across the sand, blown in by the storm’s winds. On the beach, the dancers of the Smiling Lady performed in a circle as if in a trance. Their elaborate footwork and loud chanting was the stuff of rituals. In the midst of the ranks rose one halfling — the halfling dancer from the casino — but she appeared to be made of gold. Powerful, divine magic poured from her. Tymora.

_I hit on Tymora,_ I thought to myself, mortified.

Beyond the shore, at the bow of the largest ship, was the silhouette of a twelve-foot-tall woman. Antlers arced from her head. She raised her hands; meteors pitched forth from the sky, aimed directly at the circle of dancers. Tymora retaliated with a flourish and a barrier flickered around the dancers. The meteors crashed into it, exploding on impact. The dancers were unharmed.

In front of the dancers stood a middle-aged human man in the garb of a general, and countless guards from the House sprawled before him, brandishing weapons and ready to meet the pirates head on. I did not see Belfast. The coward was hiding.

Before the lot of us could stop to evaluate what was happening, Orre launched himself onto the battlefield, with Valarr hot on his heels. I cast a few defensive spells on myself and readied my rapier to call upon the power of the Bladesong.

The pirate ships’ catapults flung fiery meteors in our direction. I managed to dodge. They crashed into the ground, searing the sand of the beach in a burst of dissolving flame.

The dancers flowed as one and met some of the meteors mid-air with their invisible barrier. The explosion sent out a shockwave; I threw my hand up to shield my face from the blast.

Egrin had Frankie in a death grip, whispering instructions loudly into her ear. After he finished speaking to her, he turned to the rest of us, shouting, “We need the sisters together. Beshaba won’t do the work herself. Clear a path. Encourage them together. I will take to the sea.”

Egrin bolted past the guards readying their weapons on the shore. The clouds broke, and rain began to fall. Bolstered by the weather and proximity to the ocean, Egrin picked up speed. He flew towards the sea with inhuman momentum. I made out some of the faces of the closer pirates as they made their way to the shore — recognition, and then fear.

He vanished below the surface of the water.

Orre held up his weapon and bellowed, “Clear a path!”

I hung back a bit, casting spells of protection on myself while my teammates moved ahead onto the beach. Frankie leaped into the formation of dancers, who seemed surprised at her presence at first, but then moved to accommodate her as she fell easily into the ritual choreography.

As the pirates drew closer, the sky split and crackled, and for only a heartbeat, I was blinded by arcs of lightning razing the sand. One bolt slammed into the dancers. Two of them dropped, unconscious. The others dancers worked to close the gap left behind. The monolithic pillars of sunlight shining through the storm clouds flickered and struggled to maintain their brightness.

Beshaba’s towering silhouette stayed resolute through the sudden pouring sheets of rain. Her ship dragged the water behind it, staining the ocean an inky black. A heaviness settled over us. I gasped, but gathered my will around me to resist her.

Orre didn’t even move to avoid the guards on our side of the field as he ran screaming towards the ocean, shouting an unintelligible war cry while he trampled soldiers underfoot. I heard someone in the crowd yell, “Is that the gladiator? _They’re here?!_ ”

I grinned. Emboldened by our apparent reputation, I ran out onto the beach, hot on Valarr’s heels as the paladin pursued Orre’s wild path. Floods of guards followed us, though whether they were inspired by Orre’s frenzy or keeping an eye on us, I had no idea.

Nickel stayed on the other side of the dancers, assuming a defensive stance. Gimbal heaved her crossbow up and aimed at the pirates approaching the beach. It misfired and hit the guard in front of her. She shrieked an apology.

Another lightning bolt razed along my and Valarr’s path. I whirled out of the way. Valarr didn’t quite manage to dodge, but he recovered, shaking off the jolt of electricity.

Small groups of pirates landed in their skiffs, the noses of their small boats sliding up on the shore as they emerged brandishing staves and weapons. In the center of the shore, Orre stood his ground. Off to the far side, Gimbal and Ellie fought valiantly.

Valarr and I made our way to the other side of the shoreline, where only a handful of guards were stationed to take on the pirates pouring forth from their boats. I pointed towards a cluster of them and flung a fireball in their direction. It vanished into their midst and exploded, setting the skiff alight and sending the men themselves flying. They managed to stumble upright but swayed on their feet. Only one stood undisturbed with his staff raised high overhead, and he turned to stare at me as antlers bloomed forth from his head.

The guards took advantage of the damage I inflicted on the enemy, moving in to cut the pirates down quickly and easily. The pirates still on the water retaliated with a shower of arrows.

I saw Nickel move forward through the crowd, then send a wave of familiar, pulsing energy in Orre’s direction. The magic engulfed Orre, and like Gimbal in the battle against the Unhorned One, he emerged from the cocoon transformed into a massive gold dragon. Orre unfurled his leathery wings and stretched them across the sky, opened his jaws to roar a wordless declaration of triumph. The guards behind him stumbled back in surprise. The pirates lapsed into speechless silence. Orre used his newfound size to shove guards out of the way and slam a taloned fist onto the nearest pirate.

Valarr crashed into the priest of Beshaba. Holy light flashed off his blade as he struck. The priest staggered, then belched a miasma of sickly green energy. The fog enveloped Valarr. He doubled over, coughing. The drow didn’t recover in time to move away from the priest before he sent an arc of dark lightning into Valarr’s chest. The two strained against each other’s wills, engaged in a battle of the spirit and body.

Beshaba held out her arms, and a pulse of dark power rolled over the shore like an invisible tide. The followers of Tymora cowered, shaking their heads against the flood of malevolent energy, and the pirates were able to push forward through the milling hordes of distracted guards.

Gimbal pulled a bag of black tar out of her bag and threw it into the fray, splattering sticky darkness across the sand. Pirates stumbled and became stuck as they fought their way forward.

All around me was the chaos of battle. Pirates and soldiers came to a standstill, heels dug into the sand, swords locked together. But Orre achieved his goal — a path cleared before and behind him between the two goddesses.

Tymora rallied the dancers around her. The light above them swelled and burst, sweeping out over the field. All at once, everyone on the shore besides the pirates felt overcome with strength and vigor. We shoved back against the enemy. Valarr shoved his blade through the priest’s gut. The priest crumpled and vanished in a crack of black lightning.

Another pirate ship pulled in front of Beshaba defensively. She raised her hands. Energy swirled around her — potent, anticipatory, like the gears of a clockwork machine winding ever tighter. Then, with a loud, chest-rattling _BOOM,_ a bolt of lightning struck the earth behind Orre. Thalia herself rose from the sand and unfurled her twin blades.

She slammed her swords into the ground, and a tremor shook the entire shoreline. I lost my footing and collapsed, battered by the waves of energy. The soldiers around us went flying. Shaky, I managed to rise to my feet in time to see Thallia stand and whirl to strike at the nearest guard, but one long, almost reptilian hand caught the First Mate’s wrist.

Dysus.

The Medusa stood in the center of the battlefield, illuminated in the rays of Tymora’s light and completely uncloaked. Garbed in armor, long, flowing skirts and rows of woven jewelry, Dysus pulled forth a sword and shield and became locked in her own personal battle with Thallia. They transformed into a whirling, blurred dance of metal and fluttering robes.

One of the pirate ships suddenly lurched upwards, forced upright by a hulking wall of white froth. The water burst and ran. Revealed by the wave, a Dragon Turtle roared, taking a massive bite out of Thalia’s ship. His claws constricted around the hull and dragged it into the deep in bits and chunks. As the Dragon Turtle vanished underneath the surface, I realized with a pang of fear that I recognized the familiar pattern of fins and bioluminescence glimmering on his back.

Water rushed onto the shore, pushed out of Egrin’s way as he fell back into the depths. I dropped into a defensive stance and steeled myself against the wall of water. The crashing waves receding forcefully past us dazed and unsteadied pirates and guards alike. Gimbal broke the surface with a gasp and threw a bloom of fire into the pirates’ midst.

I pulled back, turning to Dysus and Thalia. The two flew over the sand, their swords ringing and whistling through the air with measured, deadly precision. I caught sight of Valarr moving around to the other side of them. He and I locked eyes, speaking a silent understanding to one another – _protect Dysus_.

The paladin moved in, glancing one of Thalia’s strikes off his sword with a sharp metallic clang. Dysus and Valarr circled the tiefling even as she danced in circles and lashed out against them. Dysus held up her shield and _pushed_ , shoving Thalia back into Valarr. The drow took the chance to stab at Thallia himself, and she cried out as the blade sliced through her skin.

I threw myself into the fray. Even wounded, Thalia managed to dodge as I took two shots at her. Valarr cast divine magic over myself and Dysus. Gentle warmth pulsed around me, bolstering my strength and vitality.

Orre, still in the form of a dragon, opened his great mouth, spewing billows of ash, smoke, and deep red fire towards the remaining pirate fleet. The masts and sails of the ships went up in flames, staining the darkened horizon the color of blood even as the rain continued to pour.

Beshaba did not flinch as the skeleton of her ship glided towards the shore, slowly sinking to its resting place beneath the water. The goddess moved for the first time. She stepped into the water. The waves oozed blackness, stained with Beshaba’s presence.

An unholy burden descended upon us. Everyone on the shore felt the full weight of sharing a plane of existence with an evil goddess. They dropped to the ground, kneeling, heads bowed in a forced show of respect. Valarr and I were the only two to resist the compulsion.


	34. Day 9, Part 3: Convergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All of the party's efforts come down to this one moment.

As Beshaba moved towards us, I heard a crackling, a shattering of stone. Turning, I saw what I had read about in books only days earlier, as buildings in the city began to decay and collapse as if on unstable ground. Hunks of stone exploded into pieces on impact in the streets below.

Thalia took advantage of our distraction. I managed to swiftly move out of the way of one strike. Another hit glanced off Valarr’s armor. Thalia followed up her attack by turning to me and breathing a miasma of purple smog. It engulfed me and I found myself paralyzed in place.

Thllia turned to work more dark magic on me, but before she could attack Dysus leaped to strike her. Their blades locked once again.

Recovering, Thalia slammed the blades of her swords into the earth. In spite of my paralysis, I managed to steel myself against the shockwave that pulsed from her weapons, while many of the people around us were pushed further or thrown to the ground. Dysus, not to be deterred, dismissed her sword and shield and summoned twin hooks, lunging back into the fray.

Orre roared and bit into a pirate, lifting and _throwing_ the man into the air before swallowing him whole.

Nickel jumped into the fight against Thalia by blasting her with a beam of frost.Thalia, gripped suddenly by panic as she realized she was outnumbered, backed into Orre’s scaly hide.

The other pirates, emboldened by the arrival of their goddess, ran their ship aground and sent out a last wave of their full forces. Antlered priests and armed warriors locked staves and blades with the city’s defenders.

By now, some lingering civilians had joined the battle, wielding anything they could find – shovels, spears, knives, slingshots. Gimbal and Ellie held their own at the forefront of the shoreline, taking down pirates as they swept inland in a flurry of flashing talons and makeshift explosives.

Nickel shouted, in a panic, “The water is drawing back!”

A shadow fell over us. Valarr grabbed and shielded me.

A tsunami fell upon us.

The din of the battlefield was drowned out by the rushing of water and a solid, steel smack that rattled my bones. Though Valarr did his best to keep us both stable, we were thrown by the wave, suspended in the weightless chaos of the murky water. I held my breath until I felt as if my lungs would give out. Then, I broke the surface, clutched and dragged along the wet sand by the last shallow hands of the outgoing tide. I coughed and spat the brine I’d swallowed.

The battlefield had been completely redistributed. Some pirates and guards perished in the wave or were drawn out to sea. Waterlogged fighters stumbled back to their feet. In the midst of all of us was Egrin, back to his landlocked form and looking rather proud. He steadied himself in the middle of the beach with a bit of seaweed stuck in his hair.

The dancers had been shaken from their trance by the tsunami, and Frankie came running forward from the circle, throwing her hands around Egrin’s shoulders in a tight hug. Then, blinking as if she was seeing the battlefield for the first time, Frankie turned and pointed to the human general near the dancers, asking, “Why is he here?”

Before I could catch the rest of their conversation, the crowd split. Valarr bent down to heal me of my stunned affliction. He helped me to my feet, and we shifted to the side to join the crowd in the widening path towards the dancer circle.

Orre roared in pain as Beshaba stepped forward, passing through him as if he were nothing. Her shape left burn scars on Orre’s hide; scales flaked off like ashes. The sand melted into glass under her feet, then shattered, then blew away. Opposite Beshaba, Tymora stood up from the circle, fists balled at her side as she glimmered gold light.

Thalia, invigorated by the appearance of her goddess, threw herself at Dysus and shoved both of them off to the side of the path. Dysus cut their fight short, deftly reaching past Thalia’s blades to clutch her by the throat.

Nickel shouldered his way through the guards to join Valarr and I. The pirates stayed in their formations but did not move. I kept my hand on my rapier, cautious, but no one was fighting. Everyone’s eyes were in one place — on the goddesses.

Both of them stepped towards each other.

A disembodied alarm rang out suddenly across the city, seeming to emanate from the sky itself. Ropes, originating from an invisible point in the clouds, cracked like whips and extended to the ground. Several humanoid figures in the uniform of the royal spies came sliding down to the earth to surround the human general.

Burch notched his crossbow and pointed it directly at the general. “Belfast, you are hereby under arrest on behalf of the Crown!”

The illusion cloaking Belfast flickered, then dropped. The halfling stood encircled by the spies, his expression flat, eyes glancing furtively from agent to agent — but he did not attempt to escape or fight back.

Tymora walked past him as he was of no interest to her. She and Beshaba drew nearer to one another. They reached out their hands, but instead of fighting, their fingers touched.

All fell silent — wind, water, footsteps, voices, the rustling of clothing, breath. The weight of gravity fell upon me. A force unlike any other crushed us. All dropped to their knee in worship. Time stopped but appeared to fluctuate just enough to blink and breathe, speeding up momentarily, then pausing. I blinked and before me was no longer Tymora and Beshaba, but one goddess.

She was tall, but not as tall as Beshaba. She exuded might and whimsy in equal parts, clothed in the garb of dancers yet armored like a warrior. Her hair billowed around her. I saw her as a moon elf like myself, yet sensed that was not her true form, that her self was more chaotic and fluid than anything I had witnessed. I knew, somehow, the others perceived her differently.

Before me stood the living embodiment of chaos and wild fortune — not _good_ fortune, but random chance. Awe, humility, and religious fear seized me.

Time continued to stand still, save for us. Egrin and Frankie moved to stand before the single goddess. Valarr and I rose to our feet. Nickel lost concentration following the convergence, causing Orre to shift back into an earth genasi. Gimbal and Ellie ventured forth from where they fought valiantly on the frontlines. We stood, a patchwork team of unlikely companions, united together before Tyche.

“‘ **Fortune favors the bold,’** ” Tyche spoke, quoting her own maxim. Her voice reverberated in my chest. “ **Unlike my halves, I am not so easily swayed in one direction. But I do honor moxy.** ”

She extended a finger, beckoning Egrin Dreed close to her. He appeared… relaxed. He stepped forward.

“ **I think I know what you want of me** ,” Tyche said. He nodded, then stared back at her in resolute silence. She smiled, grinning, and replied, “ **Smarter than you look.”**

With a gesture of the goddess’s hands, the aura of distrust and danger fell away from Egrin, and rather than unpredictable he appeared… mercurial, if a bit lost. There was no malice in this man’s body, simply ignorance and a surprising sense of duty and obligation. Egrin’s shoulders sagged, the burden of the curse gone from his face, replaced entirely by peace.

Tyche looked up and cast a look around at us. “ **I suppose the lot of you worked with him. For your own reasons, of course. Hmm… Why not, for old times’ sake…** ”

She bent down and plucked Tymora’s coin from the sand. In an instant, Tyche appeared to be standing in front of me. She reached out to place a hand on my shoulder. She looked to be shifting from person to person. When I glanced around at my companions, Tyche was standing in front of them instead. I felt imbued with a new kind of magic at her touch, a gift.

**“You’ll be rid of your family now.”** The goddess said to Frankie, after flipping the coin.

“What?” Frankie stared up at her, startled. She looked to Egrin, then back to Tyche. “What family?”

Without answering Frankie’s question, Tyche turned to Nickel and shrugged. **“You have no business with me.”**

The Warforged nodded, seemed to smile, then vanished.

“ **And neither do you.”** Tyche turned her attention to Valarr. The drow looked taken aback, then also disappeared.

The goddess roamed her eyes over the rest of us, until she settled on Orre. The earth genasi, still gripping his weapon and covered in battle wounds, grinned from ear to ear.

She smiled back. **“You look like you had fun.”**

“Yes,” he replied.

**“Want more of that kind of fun?”**

Orre nodded. “I am always on for the next adventure.”

She flipped the coin again, looked at it, then winked. I did not see the effect of her magic, but Orre’s eyebrows raised. I saw him realize something, some new ability deep within himself. After giving a new power to Orre, Tyche addressed Gimbal.

“Hi,” The gnome squeaked.

**“Do you even know what you want from me?”** The goddess asked, fidgeting with the coin and turning it over in her hands.

Gimbal looked stricken. “Uhhh. I think I’ve had my fill of adventure for now.”

**“Why don’t you sleep on it?”** Tyche asked. **“I don’t do favors, but I will give you one answer. If you’ve got a question, go to everyone else you can first – but if that doesn’t work, run it by me. I’ll listen. Once.”**

Afterwards, Tyche turned to me. She looked down at the coin, glanced up at me, down at the coin again — then threw it on the ground at my feet.

**“I don’t want this,** ” she said, then vanished.

In shocked silence, I bent down and touched the coin, carefully taking it into my hands. It pulsed with power.

Before I could process what happened, Valarr reappeared in the middle of the battlefield. His eyes glimmered silver, his hair had grown to his knees, his hands had silver-stained handprints on them, and a set of massive silver wings fluttered on his back. I hesitantly stepped forward to brush my fingers across his wings. Real, feathered, metallic wings. He shifted and rustled them behind his back, getting a feel for the new appendages.

Valarr reached out and gently took my hand. “I… met my goddess.”

Still in a state of shock myself, all I could manage was “Congratulations!”

For the first time since the convergence of the goddesses, we realized everyone around us had fallen asleep. Both sides collapsed into unconsciousness the moment their deities ceased to exist.

When we became aware once again of our surroundings, time kicked back into motion. The Crown spies snapped the handcuffs onto Belfast just as he slumped into a state of unnatural slumber.

Burch whirled around, dragging Belfast on the ground. “Good work… uhh… you guys!”

“Nice entrance,” Gimbal said.

“It was my idea!” Burch said excitedly.

“Was not!”

“Was too!”

While the agents bickered among themselves, I turned to Egrin. His hand was covering his mouth, and Frankie stood behind him, one gentle, comforting hand on the small of his back. I followed the direction of their gazes, only to see Dysus and Thalia.

Or rather, I saw a statue.

Both of them were stone. The Medusa had hauled Thalia into the air, feet off the ground, ancient eyes pointed at the tiefling’s in morbid satisfaction. Thalia was frozen in a look of abject horror. Her swords impaled Dysus, but it was for nothing; the Medusa buried both of them in an eternal tomb. The only part unchanged was Dysus’ eyes, which gazed, unblinking, into forever.


	35. Epilogue: Departure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Months after the final battle, Valarr and Piscín make their way to the nearest moon elf encampment.

The sun came later and later in the mornings. The sound of cicadas buzzing in the trees made way for the calls of migrating birds. I woke up in my tent to the crisp air of fall and the pale glow of daylight. Boots crunched in the frosted dirt outside.

“Morning, Valarr,” I called. My breath came out in a cold wisp.

“Get out here and help me clean up camp,” he replied, though an undercurrent of playfulness softened the edge of his harsh tone.

I threw on my coat and crawled outside. Valarr had already taken down his tent and was absorbed in buckling his armor. There was no sign of his wings, but he only summoned them when they were necessary; his hair fell in a long plait over one shoulder. His silver eyes and the stain on his hands had never gone away.

Somewhere, beneath his undershirt and armor, there was a hand print still burning on his shoulder; I knew because I could still feel it on my own shoulder, too, the touch of Tyche.

Our companions had scattered to the wind. After the pirate invasion in the Bay, Gimbal was rewarded by the Crown spies with a job offer. Agent Roberta had wanted the gnome’s artificer capabilities on her team. Egrin and Frankie vanished; the only evidence for where they’d gone was the rumor of a stolen boat down at the docks. The locals said Orre had returned down to the tunnels, though whether he’d gone to hunt the Worm or try to find his way home, nobody could say.

As for Nickel, well — a few travelers’ camps told the funny story of a Warforged who’d suddenly reappeared in his home town as if from nowhere, only to demand absolute solitude and nap for three days. When pressed about what had happened on his travels, he refused to speak.

One thing still united all of us, however. We were now what old texts called “god-touched.”

“...God-touched?” I asked hesitantly. “What does that mean?”

I was making my way back from the royal spies’ hideout. They’d requested to hear my and Gimbal’s testimony after the battle. While I was happy to help, I was sore, waterlogged, cold, and tired. My reservoir of magic simmered like the last dying ashes of a campfire. Gimbal stayed behind to speak with the spies privately, at Agent Robriquez’s request. I was weak and in no position for a confrontation.

So when the dark-cloaked ones cornered me in a back alley, I had no choice but to humor them.

“Depends. Sometimes it comes with special powers,” one said.

“A gift!” Another chimed in.

“It means you survived direct contact with a deity,” The mage I’d met in the tunnels explained. “I imagine the most impact it will have on your life is instantly being recognized as ‘god-touched’ by those with religious affiliations.”

I squinted, and before I realized it might be a bad idea to give them an attitude, I said, “Are you lot religious?”

Instead of answering me, their group descended into a raucous, howling cackle. One of them elbowed the one standing beside them and mockingly said, “‘Are you lot religious?’”

“Listen,” the tall one from the bar drawled, “we’re just trying to help you out here.”

“Yeah, give you some tips.”

I eyed them suspiciously. “...Well. Thank you. Now, I am very tired. Am I free to go?”

One of them, a woman with long white curls brushed back from her face, tapped her lip thoughtfully. “I guess you did help us out a lot with the undead down in the tunnels...”

The one that kept excitedly interjecting their thoughts into the main conversation said, “Say hello to Dru for us.”

Hesitating, I swept another cautious look over them. When none of them moved, I stepped forward to walk past the tall one, who was blocking the alley.

His hand, lightning-fast, grabbed my arm. “Kevahir is alive. If anyone can find them, it’s you.”

“But— how—” My stomach dropped.

“We can’t tell you anything else,” The white-haired woman said, shooting her companion a warning look. “Go.”

Valarr and I finished packing up camp before the sun had climbed to its peak. He covered his face in gauzy wraps and a hood that would mitigate some of his sensitivity, and I pulled my hood up as well, because even surface elves need protection from the mid-day sun, after all.

Our destination was half a day’s journey now. I’d been striving to get in contact with other moon elves, but as the days grew colder, most of them already returned north to Ilsthanandruthil for the winter — what the humans and their clumsy tongues called “Elf Country.” Finally, a messenger got back to me one afternoon a few days prior, telling me my childhood friend Faolan and a large group of others were still camping in the forests along the eastern coasts.

“What’s that?” Valarr asked. I was walking and reading at the same time, hunched over my own graceless scrawlings in my spell book.

“Oh,” I said with a sigh, “I had a sigil sequence to a demiplane come to me in my dreams.”

He looked surprised. “What kind of demiplane?”

“My study. Or rather, my past life’s study.”

“Piscín, that’s really incredible,” He said, stopping mid-step and staring at me in awe. “You can finally find out why you keep having those visions.”

“Maybe,” I said. I shut the book and looked forward to the approaching treeline and, I knew, the coastal cliffs overlooking the ocean beyond it.

Looking down at the spell book, then back up to my face, Valarr smiled sympathetically. “You’re still thinking about that kingdom beyond the sea.”

I forced a smile in return, one I knew he could recognize as fake. “It doesn’t matter anymore. For now, let’s focus on introducing you to the moon elves. Then, I’ll decide what to do after that.”

He knew better than to press me. We resumed walking.

The wind blew towards us, and already, I could hear the sounds of joyful shouting and upbeat music. But my thumb stayed wedged in my spell book, marking the page with the sigil sequence. And Tyche’s hand print burned, burned, burned on my shoulder, as her coin burned in my pocket, as they would forever, for the rest of my life.


End file.
